Another Look

Closer (2004)

Directed by: Mike Nichols

Starring: Jude Law, Clive Owen, Natalie Portman, and Julia Roberts

Art has two faces. One which has the ability to communicate at a depth which connects us, and one to exploit. Like the truth. The truth can heal, can build, can bind. It can be told out of pain to ease the pain of another. Or it can be told out of a self-satisfying masochism, to both feel the pain and watch it carve its forms into someone else. Closer explores these two faces and it brings us, willing or no, into the discourse. There is something strangely seductive and satisfying about listening to these people bear all, speak with such frankness, even in their deception, about their deception.

What I love about this film is that it is, it has to be, self-aware. We are not simply watching the characters, we are the characters. Not in our actions, perhaps, but in our fascination with truth, with deception, and with seeing pain made beautiful; romanticized. As Portman says, it makes us feel better. The photo exhibition in the second act act of the film implicates the audience, since Closer itself is like the exhibit: we are watching people experience pain. Someone writes about it beautifully, photographs it beautifully, and acts it beautifully, and so the pain, even at its most ugly, becomes beautiful. If you don't agree, look up the reviews from critics, who all agree that Closer is a great film. Art.

Of the truth, Law's character says, "with out it, we're animals," but with it, these characters are at their most brutal. It's not about the truth, it's about our intentions with it. And it's not about our intentions with it, it's about our subsequent actions. Why do we tell the truth? Why do we create art? Why do we communicate? Is it because we want to feel something deeper than our superficial layer to what we share beneath it all? Is it to bring us closer? Have you ever told the truth, not because it was the right thing to do or because it was brave, but out of self-righteousness or because you knew it would hurt the other person? This film toys with the fine line that exists here. It brings up questions about art, about love, and about our relationships with one another.

I saw Closer in high school and all I remember is a strange kind of draw to the rawness of the characters and the way they spoke to one another. Seeing the film again, six years later, I realize that this is exactly the feeling Nichols must hope his audience will leave with, and hope, further, that they will take the time to examine. It raises some fascinating and troubling questions.