Skyfall

Directed by Sam Mendes.

Written by John Logan, Robert Wade and Neal Pervis.

Bond, James Bond, is someone you can see simply as a relentless workaholic, in ways he commits himself to it. There are moments and part of people choices when they take their work personally or not. In my perspective, consciously or not, personal and not personal are always connected in what one does. In this new film, Sam Mendes takes an opportunity to explore that aspect and that can always be enriching, in spite of any original material. I think even if how much they respect the author Fleming and its film culture, the Bond's films made today, this exact year, can’t afford to care about it extensively. In any case, it’s always an adaptation.

Why not explore some melodrama? We, the audience, and them, the bond girls, M, the villains, Bond himself, aren’t necessarily robots without feelings. They may be nothing but fictional characters, and we may be open to believe that a man survives after a free thousand meters fall into the river, we might as well find some middle ground in between. Some will hate that Bond becomes a little under as a protagonist and that not only cares about shooting guns, car chases, about women, about finishing jobs relentlessly and others might enjoy a point of view from M, the character that exposes the world of today, who realizes, as we all do, that today everyone can become a threat. And yet, in this expected melodramatic take from Mendes, he is still capable of injecting the Bond culture, in its action sequences, in its specific historical trends, the girls, the car, Scotland. But did this worked together as a whole? For some Bond fans, it can turn out to be a conflicting mix, it didn't bothered me in particular, maybe because I'm not a Bond expert/greatest enthusiast.

About the so called Bond girls, I enjoyed them, they were really good in this, even though I believe they’re still in the same bases in terms of place in the film. You know something about the woman, the reasons why she’s with the bad guys and her choice for exposing herself and trust James Bond, even if she gets screwed either ways. The villain, played by Javier Bardem, who seems to have been the right choice, he did what he could. I thought this would still be a reliable film for those who just want to see a good action film, but actually, I’m not sure what they mean by a good action film, whether if they’re disturbed by any questions in particular, whether it bothers them or not, whether they want them at all or just want a lot of noise. I’m not sure. 

This is a good Bond film mainly because of how much investment they put on it. In particular, I would say that this film is accomplished in its whole technical aspects, starting with the beautiful work of cinematography by the legendary Roger Deakins. But so the production design, the soundtrack and so on. I'm thinking about the train underground coming at us, it was so crafted that I saw myself shrinking in the seat and hiding. In this way, Mendes was a great master of the orchestra and it is enjoyable to listen to it but I don’t really know there’s much to be said about.

Oh and about the song: I only heard it for the first time in the theater and wow, it felt monumental, tremendous and deep. It was my instant favorite, even though I hadn’t heard them all. It is followed by a dear band of mine called Garbage…