(Ed. Note: This was originally published in Image Facts.)
I went off on Hess pretty hard in a piece published a while back byMetaphilm, reading it along the lines of the ignorant nihilism that informs Gummo (one of the worst things produced by America in the 90’s). Despite the aimlessness of Napoleon Dynamite, which I argued appears at first to be quite harmless but in reality is as mercenary as anything Korine has done, there is something sharp about the camerawork in Napoleon Dynamite, a lazy sort of mise-en-scene effected by a relative lack of directorial vigor. It is possible that the crisp framing and simplified story-boarding of Hess’ shots are simply an artless or thoughtless gesture, partner-in-crime to his equally thin approach to narrative transition and dialogue. But then again, maybe the guy has chops.
At least, the consistency he brings to Nacho Libre indicates that his clean and well-composed framing is completely intentional. And it fits his lo-fi comedy perfectly, sort of like how Leone’s slow pans over empty landscapes dovetailed neatly with the wry irony of his storytelling. I suppose I understand Nacho Libre‘s less than glorious critical response, as I also still deplore the way Hess cuts his two-dimensional comedy from a Coen-ish (as in Joel and Ethan) set of racial profiles. But I will go ahead and say it: Nacho Libre is sublime.
There is a moment at the end of Nacho Libre that comes awfully close to the poetry of any of a number of Spike Lee dolly shots, the one where he puts someone on a dolly facing a camera and then pulls it down an alley or through a nightclub. (I am convinced that25th Hour is actually just the one 30 second scene in which Anna Paquin floats through the nightclub. Anything before and after that shot is just a bookend, filler, an explanatory device, a progession towards and regression from that 30 second sequence that so hauntingly expresses the ambivalence of all New York bacchanalia post-9/11.) I am going to go ahead and spoil the complicated plot of Nacho Libre here, but at the end of the film Nacho, played by an ecstatically porcine Jack Black, climbs up on the ropes of the wrestling ring as his opponent attempts to flee from impending defeat. Nacho then dives from the ropes like Superman, soars about twenty feet through the air, and gracefully pins his opponent in a hold called “La Magistral Cradle.” (It really is.)
This flight through the air, in which Nacho sails inhumanly over gaping bystanders, is a thing of beauty. It is a moment of incredible poise, artful virtuality, and unapologetic myth. I don’t think it has any profound formal relationship to the film, as if Hess forges deep connections between this incognito half-Mexican charitable wrestling priest and some important point of film theory. It is simply a sublime moment: a memorable, perfectly composed flight over an impossible and unecessary distance. Jack Black is like a dancer, his sense of presence and Hess’ completely arbitrary approach to scripting and imagery come together in this scene in such a way that they almost credit each other with dignity.
I could point to other scenes almost as sublime as this, such as the one in which Nacho climbs a cliff to eat the yolk of an eagle egg that will grant him strength and the “best moves.” Nacho then turns and executes a graceful swan dive back into the ocean framed with unassuming precision from above. It may be no coincidence that Xavier Perez Grobier was brought on board as cinematographer for Nacho Libre. It is arguable that the best feature of The Woodsman, Monster House, Lucia, Lucia, andBefore Night Falls are their refreshingly crisp camerawork, and Grobier was cinematographer on all of these films. It may not be the greatest “art film” of the year, but there is an artfulness toNacho Libre that has gone woefully underappreciated.