"I was a hell of a good artist, and now I can barely write my name. So my dolls have to tell the story."
For the best part of two decades now, Robert Zemeckis has
been experimenting with new forms of filmmaking in an effort to blend the
possibilities of CGI with the classical storytelling that defined his earlier
works. It’s an admirable approach but one that has yielded few results, with
many of his animated ventures both critically and commercially whilst his live
action efforts failed to capitalise on their potential. With each new film
though I retain some sense of hope that maybe this will be Zemeckis’ return to
form.
When a violent hate crime leaves Navy veteran Mark Hogancamp’s
(Steve Carell) life utterly devastated, leaving him with serious damage to his
motor functions, severe post-traumatic stress as well as brain damage that results
in him possessing little memory of his own life. Unable to afford therapy, he
starts crafting a miniature and meticulous city and populates it with his own WW2
era adventure fantasies, a project that soon becomes a new outpouring or art
for him.
‘Welcome to Marwen’ is partially based on a documentary
depicting Hogancamp’s extraordinary life and work named ‘Marwencol’. It’s
actually the second instance of Zemeckis adapting works of documentary film
into narrative dramas, as he took it upon himself to turn the 2008 documentary ‘Man
on Wire’ into a dramatized account via the 2015 film ‘The Walk’. While Zemeckis’
restaging was admirable and featured some impressive set pieces (most notably
the climactic twin towers high wire walk), it still lacked the lyrical beauty
or emotional resonance of the documentary. The same could be said of ‘Welcome
to Marwen’ which seems to display an almost uncanny ability to misjudge its
subject matter and fail to reconcile what made the true story so impactful.
Hogancamp’s artwork and the presentation of it in ‘Marwencol’
was not reduced to a simplistic, uplifting narrative. It was a violent, dark
and sometimes uncomfortable view of someone living a life vicariously through
their staging of their own fantasies, tinged with all the sexuality and
adrenaline as human desires can be. The fact that the scenes were reflections
of Hogancamp’s own life and traumas made it all the more striking. The surface level
fact of these scenes being staged with dolls suggests a quirky or whimsical
tone but in actuality is angry and complex.
Taking all of this into account it becomes all the more
baffling that the screenplay for ‘Welcome to Marwen’ tries to approach its
subject in this stagnated tone. As much as the screenplay wants to stress the
importance of Mark’s recovery, it frames his work as an eccentric quirk rather
than the very real means of recovery that it actually was. Even putting the
real story aside though there is such a severe case of cognitive dissonance
throughout the film that it reaches levels that verge on uncomfortable. This
simplistic and melodramatic approach seems to out of synch with the horrendous
violence that instigates these events that they risk undermining the dramatic
tone the movie aspires for.
There is a similar level of awkwardness regarding Carell’s
performance. It’s Carell’s sincerity that usually works to further both his
comedic and dramatic roles, but in ‘Welcome to Marwen’ he seems lost as to when
and where to apply that sincerity. I don’t doubt the screenplay hardly made
this task any easier but Carell’s performance does little to suggest someone
grappling with their own trauma as much as it is a drastically sliding scale of
tones. There is no connective tissue between the two versions of Hogancamp he
is portraying, the victim of a violent attack and the eccentric artist taking photographs
of dolls.
The film’s narrative is split between Mark’s attempts to
navigate the real world and his own stories that play out in his constructed
miniature world. It’s a method that in this case either feels needlessly heavy
handed or frustratingly shallow. In some cases it stresses the fact that Mark’s
dolls reflect people within his own life to such an extent that it actively
impedes the central story, but at the same time it never devotes any
substantial time to those characters in the real world for their Marwen
counterpart to carry meaning. It sacrifices worthwhile drama for over the top
action sequences which do little to further the central themes the film seems
to be aiming for.
Whether those animated sequences even work at all on their
most basic functionality is also up for dispute as they venture deep into the
uncanny valley effect. Though this is a highly subjective topic, it seems to me
personally that the CGI does not possess the fluidity or dexterity needed to
appear natural. In fact realism does not even need to be the goal, a simple
sense of consistency to the way the figures moved would be convincing enough.
However as I stared at Steve Carell’s face composited onto a stilted CGI
figurine I couldn’t help but fail to be immersed within the story of Marwen.
When all is said and done though, any issues I had with the animation was
simply the tip of the iceberg for an unbalanced and poorly conceived approach to
this story.
‘Welcome to Marwen’ is a tonally unbalanced and emotionally
empty experience that waters down its subject whilst adding needless, self-indulgent
flourishes.
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