Lodge Kerrigan's KEANE

[oscar jubis]

Keane is the latest film written and directed by New Yorker Lodge Kerrigan, whose credits include Clean, Shaven and Claire Nolan: two very good films released in the 1990s, basically characters studies of individuals with fractured psyches. That description fits the new film which is absolutely magnificent. Perhaps Kerrigan's best because of how well mystery and suspense elements are incorporated into psychological portraiture. Keane is anchored by a meticulous performance by Damian Lewis in the titular role. Lewis is British, a veteran of the Royal Shakespeare Company. He did a magnificent job playing an American on the TV series Band of Brothers (Golden Globe nomination). Reportedly crew and cast members did not believe he was British.

Keane had a limited release in theatres last September and the reviews were very good. Few people got to see it though (no mention whatsoever at this site). The film was released on dvd last month. It contains an amazing extra. An alternate cut of the film, one which runs 10 minutes shorter than the original. Unlike the theatrical cut (88 min), the alternate cut (78 min) was edited by none other than Mr. Steven Soderbergh. I like this alternate cut even more than the original and I would recommend you watch this "Soderbergh edition" first. It ups the mystery element by witholding key information about the protagonist until 25 minutes into the film.

I hope you give Keane a chance. The lack of plot information on this post is not accidental. The less you know about it the more you'll enjoy it. I would appreciate reading any opinions from members about this film.

[Chris Knipp]

I am trying to put it on my Netflix queue but, as not infrequently happens, Netflix is down.

[oscar jubis]

I would really like to get your opinion about Keane one way or another. The alternate cut of the film is the best English-language film I've seen all year, with the possible exception of Black Sun, a British documentary I saw at the Miami International Film Festival.

[Chris Knipp]

Well, I'll get hold of it as soon as I can. IT's at the top of my Netflix queue now. I can't promise anything though. We may not all be as interested in fractured minds as you are, Oscar :-)

[oscar jubis]

Originally posted by Chris Knipp
We may not all be as interested in fractured minds as you are, Oscar :-)

:-) True with two exceptions: audiences go crazy for murderous fractured minds and laugh-inducing fractured minds. Keane's doesn't fall into either category.

[Chris Knipp]

I know. I read all about him in NY papers. He sounds pretty disturbed, and stressed. Just a man with mental problems having a hard time wandering out in the world. But, whatever, it's at the top of my Netflix queue now.

[Chris Knipp]

I saw it, just for you, Oscar. Good stuff, Oscar. Tough stuff to watch, but good stuff; you're right to champion it. And it had a lot more warmth in it than the movie I imagined after reading two or three reviews in New York papers when it was showing. I’m sorry I didn’t see it at the IFC last fall, because it was hard to concentrate on it in my house. Well, I didn’t have the patience to watch both versions all the way through, and I’m not sure of all the differences, but I’d say Soderbergh made a snappier version, and I can see why he would have done that because the original version’s first 30 minutes seem interminable, I thought I’d watched an hour and it was half that. Soderbergh was wise to put the looking-for-work moment very early rather than after 38 minutes, because it is better to start out with that. Soderbergh also held back a lot of the talking-to-himself passages which are so grueling and disturbing to watch until later, so we aren’t plunged into too much of that that too soon. Yeah, Soderbergh knows what he’s doing.. I don’t know if there are really people like this, anyway, delusional wanderers on disability who also throw down a lot of alcohol and snort coke and have active libidos and give ladies they don’t know $100 to help them take care of their kid; but anything is possible. (Some reviewers, who know all, assume such types are a dime a dozen. I didn’t find Keane to be like anyone I ever imagined.) The actor doesn’t look quite like the type to me, but perhaps you can’t really tell by how people look how messed up they are. And the fact that he seems so sane and ordinary and so downright good and nice a lot of the time is the essence of what makes this a moving film.

A sensitive and sympathetic evaluation of if with a comment on Soderbergh edit is here http://dvd.ign.com/articles/697/697660p1.html . In fact a lot of the reviews were very favorable as you said, if not ecstatic. I think it is warmer than they make it seem in thier descriptions. it is hard to watch, and sometimes unbearably suspenseful, but not as cold and alienating as it sounded in print.

Keane is not pleasant to watch, but it is remarkable in many ways not least of which is the lead actor’s dedicated performance, one that is understated in the ways that count most. There’s nothing theatrical or flashy about it and hence it arouses our sympathies more intensely. I’m glad Sean Penn didn’t get the part (and that he didn’t agree to Factotum and Matt Dylan did instead). Because of Kerrigan’s sympathy and actor Damian Lewis’s restraint I found myself more than once indulging in the unnerving thought that in similar circumstances I would be no more sane myself. Or maybe I’m not any more sane. This film as some have noted is not only very specific account of a possibly schizophrenic man, but also a study of urban angst, a depiction of how crazy-making urban spaces can become at times very every person who approaches them without armor.Michael Atkinson’s statement about this is too emphatic –“ Keane is a painfully specific figure but at the same time a totem, lean and frightening, for a morass of modern anxieties.” – but the borderline between Keane and us sometimes becomes blurred. Certainly students of film editing would gain something from comparing the two versions. The finale is devastating. And the same in both versions. How more specifically do you see the differences?

[oscar jubis]

Nice comments. And thanks for the link to a review that benefits from the writer's familiarity with Kerrigan's ouvre. I don't know if you're familiar with Clean, Shaven and Claire Dolan. All three films have protagonists on the margins of society who seek children they think will bring them a degree of normalcy, perhaps even happiness. Kerrigan doesn't romanticize them or sanitize them, but it's clear he understands them and treats them with compassion. He's done extensive research into mental illness and has a very close friend who suffers from schizophrenia.

I agree that Soderbergh's edit is "snappier". The main difference is that whereas the first scene in the theatrical cut features Keane looking for his daughter at the station (asking travelers and ticket vendors if they've seen the girl in the picture), Soderbergh's cut places this scene at the 25-min mark. During that time the viewer simply observes Keane trying to get a job, behaving oddly, self-medicating, etc. so it remains a mystery what brought him, if anything other than "abnormal wiring", to such a desperate state. I like this postponement of crucial information that characterizes Soderbergh's alternate cut of the film.

I have 11 years of experience working in community mental health centers and there's nothing I would change about the film in terms of authenticity and realism. The scene in which he goes inside a bar and tries to drown the hallucinations by singing over them to a Four Tops song is simply brilliant. The final scene in which he seems to be enacting a type of cathartic re-enactment of the traumatic event left me breathless. Kerrigan has complained about the mentally ill being removed by cops from public places. His films put mentally ill people back on public view. I'm glad films like Keane exist and serve as a corrective to exploitation like A Beautiful Mind that distort the experience of being mentally ill for cheap thrills and get rewarded for doing so.

[Chris Knipp]

No I don't know Kerrigan's œuvre, and knowledge of that always enriches one's experience. I'm glad my comments appealed to you and thanks for the further information. I saw the main difference after all, then, if that's what it is, between K's and S's edits, only I interpret it differently: I think S's allows us to see Keane initially more as normal, rather than making him look nutty right away. That way S's edit highlights the fact that Keane does want to appear normal and often can. The way Kerrigan begins makes the whole film feel more like a struggle to watch, and makes Keane's seemingly functional behavior, connecting with women, talking to people conversationally, seem odd and inconsistent. I take it the film wants us though to see that this man teeters on the verge between sanity and functionality and psychosis. It's his desperate circumstances that push him toward the latter.

I guess when you go into a bar you meet a lot of dysfunctional people.