‘Air’ or — Arpeggios, Emptiness and the Temporal Dislocation of Mike and the Mechanics?
I know nothing about basketball, even less about Michael Jordan and when it comes to training shoes I still call them plimsolls so the idea of watching a two hour movie about the creation, marketing and celebrity endorsement of some sports foot wear didn’t exactly get my blood pumping. Yet maybe, just maybe ‘Air’ (2023) could turn this profoundly uninteresting subject into a riveting cinematic experience? And did it succeed? Of course not because, and fittingly for a movie about shoe-making, ‘Air’ is a load of old cobblers!
You see, for all the attempts to inject narrative drama of any kind into this subject matter we’re still dealing with nothing more than a shallow exercise in branding and consumerism. It’s why I have zero interest in ever watching a film called ‘Bootiful’ where we follow Bernard Matthews in his desperate attempt to create the perfect turkey roast or a bio-pic about whether or not Brute could land Henry Cooper before they lose him to Blue Stratos. Admittedly Michael Jordan has slightly more historical importance than a Norfolk turkey farmer, especially if you’re into basketball I guess, but the basic principle — fame+product=money — remains identical.
It that respect it’s the ideal American movie in that it’s a full-blown celebration of capitalism, consumerism and the art of making money although this does mean the stakes are automatically rendered down to nothing more than will the people we’re watching on screen make a load of money or a shit load of money and whether or not these corporations will earn millions of dollars or billions of dollars. There’s one line of dialogue where someone admits to feeling a vague sense of guilt about the fact their product is manufactured in Asian sweatshops and a closing segment about how all this was really about helping young athletes get their fair share of what they’re worth but, that aside, this is a piece of corporate propaganda that would have Edward Bernays roaring his approval.
What could’ve been far more interesting would be to examine at the social and financial impact the blight of celebrity endorsed sports shoes has had on society, and I’d wager serious money that there’s many a pressurised parent out there who’d happily wish these over-priced playground status symbols they have to buy for their kids had never existed in the first place.
My other problem is that it’s directed by Ben “How the hell did ‘Argo’ ever win an Oscar?” Affleck, a competent filmmaker, sure, but one I find can suck all the tension out of a situation as opposed to provided the necessary vitality or anything of real visual interest. This could be why it’s the soundtrack that does much of the heavy lifting in terms of pushing everything forward with any sense of urgency with the score consisting of circa 1984 rock songs and arpeggiated synth classics such as Tangerine Dream’s ‘Love on a Real Train’, The Alan Parson’s Project’s ‘Sirius’ and ‘Telescope’ from Pino Donaggio’s excellent ‘Body Double’ soundtrack. All great choices but the over reliance on these to juice the energy in the absence of any emotional force is noticeable. Still, it’s a great soundtrack.
Apart from one glaring error which is, as far as I’m concerned, fatally detrimental to ‘Air’ and makes the entire enterprise totally collapse. As I said, all the events in the movie take place in 1984 and the music choices reflect this. However, at one point the Mike and the Mechanics song ‘All I Need is a Miracle’ is used but as everybody knows Mike and the Mechanics didn’t record ‘All I Need is a Miracle’ until 1985 and it wasn’t released as a single until 1986 which beggars the question — what the hell was Affleck thinking to make such an obvious anachronistic mistake?! And being something of a renowned expert on Mike Rutherford’s non-Genesis oeuvre this took me completely out of the movie to such an extent that rather than being engaged with whether or not Nike or Adidas were going to make any more money I just kept on wondering “How big a Mike and the Mechanics fan must Ben Affleck be to crow-bar in a song that’s temporally disjointed from the rest of the movie thus destroying the integrity of his entire project?”
Still, thinking about why the decision was made to use ‘All I Need is a Miracle’ in a movie set in 1984 was certainly more interesting than waiting to find out if a sports shoe was going to get made or not. Maybe they should make a movie about that someday? I’d happily watch that.
