Restraint & Cinema

Restraint- restraint is an easy enough word to define as a noun, but as a characteristic which can be held by a person or thing, it is a more vague notion. It's a subjective quality that works in tandem with potential and vision- restraint is the ability to have potential and choose not, a significantly different quality than the lack of potential or vision and therefore the inability to choose. In a CGI age, potential has become virtually limitless- plausible and possible have become par for the course when any vision may be realized by the digital wizards behind films. In an age where potential and vision have no restraints (noun), it's become more important than ever that filmmakers learn restraint (verb).

I'm no Luddite, mind you. I'm not anti-CGI, and I don't think CGI is "ruining movies". CGI is a tool used by filmmakers who choose to use it, and like a tool of carpentry, it can only ruin a piece if it's used incorrectly. Some pieces may need it more than others, and some may not need it at all. I consider the uses and non-uses of CGI today after completing my viewing of 2009's live-action remake of "Blood: The Last Vampire". The original film was an animated feature put out by Production IG in the year 2000, and it happens to be among my favorite anime films. With a total run-time of only 45 minutes (opening and closing credits included), the original "Blood" was a film which showed great restraint in many regards- the short length was reminiscent of a horror short story, giving you enough time and information to understand the world but ending quickly enough to leave the mystery and atmosphere intact, never allowing you to become comfortable within the fiction you have entered. Characters in the original film are few, and dialogue is sparse and economical- we understand characters through their actions rather than via monologue, narration, or flashback. This deliberacy- of the classic film mantra "Show, don't tell"- is more akin with Roman Polanski than Rob Zombie.

The original "Blood" was not just an exercise in good storytelling, however- the masterminds at Production IG made "Blood" one of the premeire vessels through which CGI could marry into the traditional cel-animation canon. Using digitally animated paintings first experimented with in Ghost in the Shell (1995) and Princess Mononoke (1997), "Blood" showed technical advancement which enabled it's animators to visualize the world of "Blood" in ways which animation could never had done before- the CGI is used cautiously but effectively, allowing for gentle pans, perspective shifts, and scenes of great crowds which would have simply not been possible by hand. It's the cautious and deliberate use of CGI which make the original "Blood" so exemplary in the world of contemporary filmmaking, but it tragically underlines the flaws of it's live-action remake, which is far less judicious in it's digital rendering and is ultimately symptomatic of the problem with far too many modern films.

The new "Blood" is a mess of a film in all too many ways, chief among them being the substance for which the title is named- for some reason, the considerable amount of blood spilled from slashed enemies is as CGI as can be imagined. Globby and in particle-effect "strands", the CGI blood (which is supposed to be no different than the blood in the veins of you or I) is unfortunately more akin to the CGI blood of Rob Zombie's "The Devil's Rejects" than it is akin to the gallons of colored corn syrup in classics like "Evil Dead". But why CGI blood? What's the point? What does it bring to the table? I can't imagine hundreds of man-hours developing L-system subroutines for liquid physics (I have no idea if any of those are applicable terms, but bear with me) is somehow easier than having Saya slash open a ziploc bag full of corn-syrup and dye. The computer synthesized plasma paired with 300-inspired slow-motion, cheap and ugly "magic smoke transformations" for the vampires, and altogether too much digitally enhanced wire-fu made for an aesthetically unpleasant film that didn't even have the decency to tell it's story properly. The flashbacks were forced in to tell a story that couldn't be shown (and didn't need to be, for that matter), the characters were elaborated upon to a degree at which all mystery was lost, and too many subplots distracted from the atmosphere that all great horror films need.

I'm not against CGI by any stretch, but please, filmmakers, show some restraint. Take a look at why "Blood: The Last Vampire" (animated) is so darn good and why "Blood: The Last Vampire" (live-action) is so darn terrible.