Clean (2004)

The initial suspense of Clean lies not in whether its protagonist, Emily (Maggie Cheung), a once promising rock something or another, will shake the grips of heroin addiction, but in the genre itself. One can’t help but wonder whether the picture will compromise its lean integrity and become another grim, purposeless, self-congratulatory slog like nearly every other picture that concerns drug addicts and the (on again off again) struggle they normally face trying to achieve the titular state. Clean is, remarkably though, the ideal title for Olivier Assayas’ picture, referring not only to Emily but to the filmmaker’s astoundingly matter of fact approach. Assayas stands outside and inside the junkie rehab genre at once, examining it like one might a caged bear, with both curiosity and a welcome generosity of spirit. Assayas would appear to view this genre as a puzzle: how do we find the actual humanity of a tragedy or hardship that countless folks face everyday? How do we clear the hurdle of cliché?

The solution is to snip the clichés out like dead branches; quickly, fearlessly, with no apology or self-consciousness. Clean is pointedly devoid of all the scenes one expects from the genre, devoid, in fact, of many of the scenes one expects from any drama. We’re spared tearful reunions or separations, we’re largely spared Emily’s physical torment, we’re spared the death of a pivotal character, an even more pivotal reconciliation is implied but never shown, etc.; scenes end mid-tempo, unfulfilled, the plot floating and wandering like the central character. Clean doesn’t assume the position of a removed, drunken third party telling someone a story at a bar, desperate to move or impress; the picture is Emily: playing its emotions close to its vest, shuffling from one day to the next with completion and maintenance of a basic pride being the hopeful, up-front goals.

Assayas boils everything down to the existential essential without compromising the gravity or pathos of the subject matter in the service of some art-house wank; he earns our trust, and this trust allows the moments to have an anxiety that isn’t real but relatable, the picture is both more universal and more specific at once. Clean manages to be both the most aesthetically beautiful junkie picture I’ve ever seen as well as possibly the most moving without that being a contradiction in terms. Make no mistake, Clean is a movie first and most, still about real problems in a way that only movies are, especially European movies, but the picture is a sublime balancing act, the best of every world.

Maggie Cheung, captivating in a number of Wong-Kar Wai pictures, is startling here as Emily, consciously playing her beauty and poise, normally the bridges that keep us from buying an actor in such a role (ask Charlize Theron or Halle Berry), against our expectations here. Her Emily is vibrant, stunning, self-absorbed, a creature of infinite shells of bullshit who may or may not have an actual, vested interest in finding her humanity. Emily eludes in her apparent lack of elusion, her “straight forwardness” just another device for self-explanation and rationalization, whether she consciously knows it or not. Emily, in an astute observation of behavior on the part of the film, never lies, but pay attention to how she never lies.

Nick Nolte, as Emily’s father-in-law and de facto guardian of her child, etches one of those subtle, volcanic portraits of normalcy and dignity on the brink of falling into the abyss that only a famous weirdo can with such committed lack of irony; the husk of that unmistakable voice, the creases and wrinkles in that deep, large head, the faded lion’s mane of hair, are all used to unforgettable effect; the machismo of Nolte’s past parts inform the role and lend it originality and texture, this is clearly a man used to victory and control learning how to face loss on the fly: he’s, and the film never does our work for us, much more like Emily than either he or Emily know. The picture takes a cue from these rich performances and never stokes the fires of melodrama, these characters never oppose one another as many other films have conditioned us to expect, they instead oppose themselves in front of one another, and discover a common bind that goes on to color the picture’s earned, open-ended final image.

Clean is an accomplishment, a mood film that’s deeper and more moving the further it slips into your memory, perhaps because it manages, so gracefully, to feel half-remembered already.

★★★★

Posted on May 9th, 2008 in Reviews, Drama, 2004 |

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