WHIPLASH 2014 | A promising young drummer enrolls at a cutthroat music conservatory where his dreams of greatness are mentored by an instructor who will stop at nothing to realize a student's potential. (IMDb)
Dead Poets' Society, Coach Carter, Freedom Writers, The Miracle Worker. Movies that are about teachers with unconventional teaching methods, lessons that go beyond the four corners of a classroom, a story that teaches morals that are not taught in textbooks.
Whiplash is NOT that kind of movie. It's a grueling, intense, electrifying film that will rock you to your core and make you question -- is perfection worth the price of one's sanity?
When I saw the movie, I swear, every fucking moment was intense. Director Damien Chazelle has done such an amazing job with this film given the fact that it was an opener for the Sundance Film Festival.
Now based on the stuff I read, openers aren't really what people attend film festivals for. They attend for the main event. But from the looks of it, Whiplash seemed like it stole the thunder from the main flicks.
Drill sargeant, music instructor, all-around terror character
Whiplash is drama without the sap and inspiration without the cheese. It's a thriller but instead of a knife-wielding maniac, it's a maniac that teaches the rhyme and time of jazz music.
Chazelle does away with the frilly and gooey aspects of every drama-inspiration movie, and the emotions are all heightened to a degree where they grip you throughout the movie up until those cinema lights go on. J.K. Simmons (Terence Fletcher) and Miles Teller (Andrew Neeman) were powerhouses with acting chops that make you feel raw, powerful emotion.
Fletcher will scare the shit out of you. Personally, he made me think of my terror professors and the stench of fear in the air during those classes.
Usually in every movie with a teacher that instructs art, music, dance, etc., they would utilize emotions and feelings which the student uses to feed his/her performance or work of art. But in Whiplash, there will be none of that. It's all about technicalities, counting, rhythm. It's not just about feeling the music.
Blood, sweat, and tears -- literally.
Practice makes perfect, goes the old adage. But no. Practice, precision, bleeding, insatiable desire to be "one of the greats", personal relationships blowing up in smoke, being anti-social... The road to perfection is not for the faint of heart.
It is not human to be perfect, but it is a human endeavor to aspire to be. How far will you go to be one of the greats? Neeman went too far, breaking the walls of his sanity and beating himself up in the process, falling prey to the verbal and physical abuse of Fletcher.
But then as he progresses, he crosses over to an almost inhuman level of aspiration and, later redeems himself with one hell of a performance I swear to whatever gods may be you will not forget.
Neeman is hopeful then highly ambitious. Fletcher is terrible then down-right evil then it's you saying "oh-okay-I-get-his-point". Did I forget to mention the soundtrack? Oh dear god the soundtrack. It's beautiful, it's wonderful, exciting, much pizzaz. It's jazz. Need I say more?
"There are no two words in the English language more harmful than 'good job'."
Whiplash opens in local PH theatres on October 15. Please do not miss it. (I'd even pay for your ticket if necessary!)
