MYST #4: Vanilla Sky

Vanilla Sky is a story about David Aames(Tom Cruise) who has inherited his fathers business at a publishing firm who lives his life as a bachelor but hasn't really inherited the one thing he truly needs;love. He then meets the love of his life at a party by the name of Sofia(Penelope Cruz). They spend the entire night talking and getting to know each other. They fall in love instantly without a single doubt about each other. Now here is where things become a bit hard to follow. David's former lover, Julie(Cameron Diaz), hears of Sofia and attempts to commit suicide with David in a car crash. Julie dies but David survives leaving his face disfigured. There is no chance to do plastic surgery for David so he has to wear a mask to cover his injuries. One night David, David's friend Brian(Jason Lee) and Sofia go out to a bar and David becomes hopelessly drunk, which results him to be left outside to rot by his friends. The next morning David is awoken by Sofia who apologizes for deserting him the night before. They pick up where the left off as new lovers and his life seems to become more content by receiving plastic surgery from which he thought was impossible and Sofia is in his life and happy as ever. 

But David is experiencing brief visions of his disfigured face, Julie still being alive, and meeting a man(Noah Taylor) at a bar who tells David he can control his life however he wishes. One day David comes home and Julie is there convincing David that she is Sofia. David then becomes angry and confused which results him to suffocate Julie while having intercourse. David is put into an insane asylum with a man who he talks to everyday for a few hours by the name of Curtis(Kurt Russell). David tells Curtis his story but of course he doesn't believe David. David then sees a commercial on TV with the man he met at the bar who works for a company by the name of "Life Extension." Curtis, David, and a bodyguard arrive at this company and speaks with a woman(Tilda Swinton) who David has had visions vaguely about. The woman goes onto explain that they freeze people just after their point of death, by placing them in a lucid dream state. David then calls tech support which results him to be talking to the man at the bar(Noah Taylor) on a impossibly tall building given two choices for what he can accept. Either he can be reinserted to the correct lucid dream state or to wake up by jumping off the building. David then chooses to jump off the building and is awoken by a voice saying "open your eyes", David then opens his eyes and the movie ends there. 

This movie is very complicated and I didn't need to tell you every little thing that has happened, but there is no simple plot for this movie. Anyway, as I watched this film I noticed a element that stood out in the matter of camera. Within this production, I noticed times where a steady cam came into place to expose David's life and dream state. In one of the scenes in the beginning, David is driving to work and notices that nobody is in times square(NYC). The steady cam then moves in on Davids car from a distance and then David steps out of the car and he proceeds to jog into the street. The camera is following David in front of him, behind him, and on the sides capturing the emptiness of this street. This shot was very good in terms of composition. It started off in a medium shot by revealing the location, and then brought into a closeup of the actor showing his confusion as to what is happening, then onto a extreme long shot of the city and it's vast emptiness. 

There was another scene where David and all the other characters in the movie were on top of the building when David was deciding his fate. The sky had an effect of how the painting did in David's apartment. It really gave us a symbolic meaning of this scene. I enjoyed it very much to see this scene come into play towards the ending, really wraps it up and explains Vanilla Sky. I noticed a scene that didn't stand out as well as it may have. It was right after Julie drove off the bridge. The camera got multiple angles of the crash into the wall and then they let the camera roll for about 10-20 seconds of just the car sitting there and then finally people in the background realize what just happened. I wish they showed what happened inside the car, but I guess they wished for the viewers get a deeper symbolic meaning of Sofia "being alive" still later in the movie. 

I feel as though the director truly needs composition and camera to show to the viewers what the movie means, the actors feel, and what we all see in life. It captures the essence of what makes a true movie. Nobody would enjoy a movie in which everything was point blank and didn't make you think. A true good movie, makes the viewer think a little because then you find out all the little secret meanings of the plot and characters lives. 

I found a distinct resemblance from this movie to Memento. These movies both make you believe that nothing is true, or reality is really real. They both also end with the beginning in some way. Memento is told backwards and ends with the beginning and in Vanilla Sky we are greeted and left with the dialogue line "Open your eyes" as if the whole movie was played backwards as well.

All in all, great thinker. 8/10