The Professional

'But after the overtures, he does tend to get a little fucking boring. That's why I stopped! *laughs*' - Stan

I bought The Professional last week, because why not? It's a good movie, and I hadn't seen it in years, and I hadn't really watched it with any sort of critical eye when I did. So that's how I spent last night (when not complaining on a blog post).

I like the contrasts between Leon (Jean Reno), and Stan (Gary Oldman). Stan is all erratic gestures and shouting, Reno is soft-spoken, and sticks to short, quick movements.  Especially on the job, he tends not to linger in view. That whole first hit, where you see him in flashes, bits and pieces. A hand here, an eye peering through a bullet hole there. Meanwhile, Stan's blasting doors in and running amok when he kills. Stan waves his gun around like it's an appendage he's barely aware of, while Leon only brings a gun into view when there's a reason to do so. Leon drinks milk religiously, Stan pops those green and yellow pills like Skittles. Stan's supposed to be an officer of law, but he's dirty. Leon kills people for money, but operates by a specific code. He's probably not "good", at least not at first, but you know where his lines are.

By the end, things shift. Leon's the one blasting away at cops, making threats, yelling a challenge to the world. Stan begins to operate more carefully, especially once he spies Leon. He sticks to shadows, vanishes by stepping back into the rain from the sprinklers, is only partially in view as he peers around corners. And when he does shoot, he gets close to do it.

They both speak haltingly, too. Leon, because he often isn't sure of his words, isn't sure of himself. I think that's why he doesn't lie to Mathilda (Natalie Portman) about being a cleaner, about wanting to escape with her, about his rules, how the plant is his best friend, any of it. He isn't certain enough to try and lie. Or else it's because he's a bit of a child himself, and thinks he shouldn't. Stan's pauses are all about dramatic effect. The calm, then the outburst, be it anger or a lunatic glee. I'm not sure if it's meant to be deliberate on his part, or just something he does because of how his mind works. Mathilda's different. There's not much hesitation to her at all. Asked a question, she will answer, and her answer will not be halting. She will spit out whatever it is she intends to say. I think it's the only way she could get a word in edgewise between everyone in her family dumping shit on her all the time.

I don't know what to make of the thing between her and Leon. She says she's fallen in love with him, and that's probably true, but she also looks after him a bit, at least breaks his routine some. I don't think Leon understands very much other than caring for his plant, and killing people. So he keeps his life to a strict routine, because it lets him stick with what he understands. He's like the new kid in school, afraid to introduce himself, so he stays off by himself. I'm not sure exactly what form his affection for Mathilda takes. It feels like more than a paternal thing, maybe because he isn't much older than her in some ways, and that makes him very uneasy. Or it makes him aware of his mortality. Stan wasn't talking to Leon when he said, 'It's when you become really afraid of death, you learn to really appreciate life.' but he might as well have been.

That whole bit where Mathilda convinces Leon to play the "Who am I?' game was very strange. That Mathilda went with Madonna first, then Marilyn Monroe. Was it her idea of flirting with the guy she would later say she was falling in love with? Or was it just her wanting to dress up as a full-grown woman? Or did she just figure Leon would know them? I was really struck by how uncomfortable Leon, looked during the Monroe part. With the others, he was just befuddled, but when Mathilda starting singing "Happy Birthday", he looked like he genuinely wanted to be somewhere else. I don't know.

I like the use of the apartments themselves. When Mathilda's family is killed, people are scrambling from room to room, into and out of hallways, dashing out of a doorway that put them behind the guy chasing them, whipping around corners only to find more gunmen. The whole thing is like some hedge maze of death, each family member trying to find the way out before time runs out.

There's one shot that caught my eye. Two, really. One was when Stan cornered Mathilda after her disastrous attempt to kill him. When their foreheads are practically touching, and the camera is stationed a few inches below their chins, peering up at them. Most times, I'd expect the camera to be at the same level as their eyes, but off to one side, perpendicular to the direction they're facing. But I think this brings you in closer, traps you between them, makes you more aware of how close this mad dog is to the 12 year old girl, and how bad it scares her. Cleaning isn't some fun revenge fantasy any longer. It has real consequences, and there's a reason Leon said you start with the rifle, where you can be far away.

The shot that really intrigued me was when we first meet Stan and Mathilda's father. After her dad has insisted to Malky that he doesn't know what happened, and Malky tells Stan (who had been listening to music on headphones), Stan turns to face the man. And the camera does, I don't know exactly. It's that trick where it seems to zoom in on the foreground, while zooming out on the background, so the background is indistinct, but the character is in sharp focus. It was just very noticeable, somehow. It made the guy look displaced from the hallway, like he was a picture cut out of a magazine and pasted there. I think it's meant to be the moment Stan truly puts his focus on him and just how intense that can be. And again, the camera feels a little closer than it would normally be. As though Stan has somehow taken a step closer in the moment he turned and we (and Mathilda's dad) weren't able to back up in time.

It's like rattlesnakes. If you see one coiled up, you want to stay further away than half its body length. Then it shouldn't be able to strike at you without first moving closer, and slithering is slower than striking, so you'd have time to react, to increase the distance. Well, Stan is the snake, and it's too late, Mathilda's dad is already within striking distance. He can feel it, and we can see it in his eyes, in his uneasy posture, the way he's sort of trying to turn his body away a little, like he wants to run, but knows he can't turn his back. He's trapped, and just has to hope the snake chooses not to strike.