TOP
TEN FILMS SEEN IN THE YEAR 2015
(Films not released or shown in
Xavier Dolan is back with yet another brilliant picture,
where he continues to challenge himself and in turn the audience with such
socially relevant material, this time backed up by the most extraordinary
acting performances that largely go unrecognized. Jia Zhang-ke has created a heartbreaker where
the influence of wealth exiles a new generation from their own cultural history,
while Christian Petzold has made the film of his life, featuring one of the
most priceless final shot sequences in cinema history. Wim Wenders has literally drawn inspiration
from a fellow artist, Brazilian photojournalist Sebastião Salgado and created a
fusion documentary film, easily the best doc of the year, while Andrei
Zvyagintsev has crafted another bleak Russian parable in the manner of
Dostoyevky. Todd Haynes has made the
finest film of his career, a glowing tribute to all the gay romance stories
that were never told during the golden era of Hollywood, while Arnaud
Desplechin discovers two first-time actors in one of the more enjoyable
coming-of-age movies that the French seem to specialize in. Two of the most extraordinarily beautiful
films seen all year (or any year) include parallel black and white journeys
into the Amazonian rain forest in different time periods by Crio
Guerra and Hou Hsiao-hsien’s utterly spectacular martial arts
spectacle that minimizes the genre choreography while leaving viewers stunned at
the sheer beauty of the film. Asghar
Farhadi never got his due for what is arguably his best film due to rights
issues, so the release (six years delayed) comes “after” his heralded success
with A Separation (2011), still the
most financially successful Iranian film in U.S. history.
Honorable mention films are more of a mixed bag, where all
are smaller films, veering off the beaten track containing a much bigger
message, where perhaps the biggest surprises are two small gems from Iceland
that probably few have seen or even heard about.
Happy New Year to one and all!!!!!!!
Robert
Top
Ten Films
1.) Mommy –
Xavier Dolan, Canada
2.) Mountains
May Depart (Shan he gu ren) – Jia Zhang-ke, China
3.) Phoenix –
Christian Petzold, Germany
4.) The
Salt of the Earth – Wim Wenders and Juliano Ribeiro Salgado, Germany and
Brazil
5.) Leviathan
(Leviafan) – Andrei Zvyagintsev, Russia
6.) Carol – Todd
Haynes, USA
7.) My
Golden Days (Trois souvenirs de ma jeunesse) – Arnaud Desplechin, France
8.) Embrace
of the Serpent (El abrazo de la serpiente)
– Crio Guerra, Colombia
9.) The
Assassin (Nie Yinniang) – Hou Hsiao-hsien, Taiwan
10.) About
Elly (Darbareye Elly) – Asghar Farhadi, Iran
Honorable
Mention
Heart of
a Dog – Laurie Anderson, USA
Metalhead
(Málmhaus) – Ragnar
Bragason, Iceland
Red Army
– Gabe Polsky, USA
The
Homecoming (Blóðberg) – Björn Hlynur Haraldsson, Iceland
Mustang – Deniz
Gamze Ergüven, Turkey
1.) MOMMY Mommy
A
Hey, I
wanna crawl out of my skin
Apologize for all my sins
All the things I should have said to you
Hey, I can’t make it go away
Over and over in my brain again
All the things I should have said to you
Counting stars wishing I was okay
Crashing down was my biggest mistake
I never ever ever meant to hurt you
I only did what I had to
Counting stars again
Hey, I’ll take this day by day by day
Under the covers I’m okay I guess
Life’s too short and i feel small
Counting stars again
Sugarcult
- Counting Stars - YouTube (
The opening sequence adds a bit of science fiction allure,
setting the film in the very near future when a new Canadian law makes it legal
for parents to institutionalize their children for any sort of behavioral
issue. This is like a warning shot
across the bow, addressing the unanswered ramifications of a lax society that
simply doesn’t want to have to deal with aberrant social behavior, preferring
to hide their problems behind the walls of prisons or psychiatric
institutions. Due to increasing pressure
for schools and principals to measure success through statistical measurement,
many of these borderline kids are being pushed out, where the schools don’t
want them. Nearly half (approximately 47
percent) of the youth in juvenile detention have a diagnosis of ADHD, where 32%
of students living with ADHD drop out of high school, while 50% are
suspended. A recent series of articles
investigating the harsh and often violent conditions of juvenile residential
treatment facilities was written by The
Chicago Tribune, Harsh
Treatment - Chicago Tribune, revealing a common response to disruptive
behavior is for attendants to administer “emergency” doses of powerful
psychotropic drugs, with some facilities administering much higher doses than
others, suggesting rules and procedures that are not uniform where we’re still
at an early stage in understanding the societal impact. The article suggests
there are some facilities where these kids come out more violent than when they
went in, where the ADHD kids are at higher risk for incarceration, school
failure, substance abuse and suicide.
Dolan’s alarmist view of adolescent institutionalization is reminiscent
to the highly experimental electric shock treatments received in the 40’s by
adult actress Frances Farmer (Jessica Lange) in FRANCES (1982), the involuntary
lobotomy forced upon Jack Nicholson as McMurphy in ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO’S
NEST (1975), and Kubrick’s futuristic horror film A
Clockwork Orange (1971), where it’s the government implementing a highly
experimental brainwashing technique, supposedly eradicating the condition of
societal violence through Pavlovian behavior conditioning, all films that
depict a brash sense of fiercely defiant independence stuck in the hands of
overcontrolling institutions that are designed to tame the wild and exuberant
instincts out of humanity through psychotropic, sedative-like medications,
making patients more manageable in an institutional setting.
Diane Després (
The indefinable and continuously shifting mental state of
Steve is in a constant state of flux, unpredictable from moment to moment, yet
what is undeniable is the unconstrained brashness of his emerging masculinity,
where he has no sexual outlet, so his flirtatious manner is inappropriately
expressed with his mother and Kyla, often crossing the line, but it’s also
clear they both absolutely adore this kid and want the best for him, where love
exists in a minefield of unanticipated accidents and even further setbacks,
where he can frighten the hell out of them, sending them into a distressed
panic, followed by moments of unsurpassed joy and exhilaration. The audacity of the film, with its slo-mo
shots, operatic use of 90’s music, and the sheer range of emotions, the
tragedy, the hope and heartbreak, the shattering experiences that comprise the
narrative storyline, where despite the bombastic melodrama that is like
adrenaline racing through the veins, there are also more subtle, nuanced clues
that exist in a quiet reverie of their own, fleeting images that have the
capacity to affect the viewer, like Steve riding his skateboard wearing
headphones as we hear Counting Crows “Colorblind,” Mommy
Movie CLIP - Colorblind (2015) - Xavier Dolan Movie HD YouTube (1:25),
where the music exudes a distinct feeling of alienated disconnection in this
depiction of living in a world all his own, or a more euphoric sequence set to Oasis - Wonderwall - Official
Video - YouTube (4:40) that opens with Steve literally opening the frame
with his hands to widescreen, where he skateboards through the streets
alongside Diane and Kyla on their bikes in a rush of momentary elation, or a
dim, unlit moment standing in the middle of the road when Steve tries to pour
out his heart to Kyla while she’s being called inside to dinner, both existing
as if in another dimension, pulled from different directions, or a photograph
in Kyla’s bedroom of herself and her son, who is never mentioned or referred
to, but who is obviously the source of insurmountable loss in her life. Defined by her selflessness and
vulnerability, Kyla is the near-mute reincarnation of Giuletta Masina’s
Chaplinesque Gelsomina in LA STRADA (1954), who bares her soul each and every
day, somehow finding herself back at ground zero in another human catastrophe,
where by putting out the fires they are only postponing the inevitable, as
Steve is literally an accident waiting to explode—it’s only a matter of
time. A passion play of volatile
emotions and combustible energy, the futuristic implications extending to
society-at-large pervade throughout the entire film, casting a lengthening
shadow over the whole glorious affair, creating an underlying layer of moral
incertitude that will continually plague our contemporary existence. The allure of Dolan’s film is the
free-spirited message of tolerance and openness, where nothing is hid in the
closet to fester and grow ugly, as political incorrectness exists throughout
this film, as if intentionally placed, where human flaws are exposed as the
bread and butter of life, as everyone is not dealt an even hand, but you live
with what you’ve got. This confounding
and often messy affair is a throwback to the Cassavetes
view of art, a modernistic and completely ahead-of-it’s-time credo that thrives
on the beauty of individual expression, where dealing creatively with the complexities
of life’s problems is accompanied by a liberating feeling of giddy
exhilaration. The torch has been passed.
Life does
repeat itself. That’s why it feels…
familiar. —Dollar
(Dong Zijian)
The ambitious nature of this filmmaker just continues to
keep growing, where he already ranks as one of the top filmmakers in the world
today, but he also carries the mantle of being a Chinese spokesperson during a
rapidly developing period of change in China, which is precisely what this film
is about. While the Communist Party
continues to hold the reigns of political power in China since driving Chiang
Kai-shek and his Kuomintang Party off the mainland to Taiwan in 1949, the
repressive effects of single party rule have dominated the history of both
nations since World War II. While a
pro-democracy movement effectively ended in a massacre at Tiananmen Square in
1989, snuffing out any thoughts of freedom, it also coincided with an admission
that all efforts to save socialism had failed, requiring a new approach, symbolized
by Hong Kong’s return to Chinese sovereignty in 1997, where China has been
trending to a capitalist market economy since the end of the 90’s, even joining
the World Trade Organization in 2001.
While the Party has distanced itself from radical ideology, there are
fewer charismatic leaders, but the government has not come to terms with or
prepared itself for a new political reality.
The past 30 years have brought enormous changes to China, shifting from
an agriculture driven to an industrialized society, causing widespread soil
contamination, along with the toxic effects of electronic waste, water and air
pollution. Rapid economic advancement
with unchanged politics offers the perception of a State-led market economy
while continuing to maintain authoritarian rule, leaving one to wonder whether
this model is sustainable. While China
has become a highly successful international trading partner, where a
thoroughly modernized showcase city like Shanghai is the largest free-trade
zone in mainland China, the nation as a whole still lacks free market ideas,
yet China is on the verge of becoming or has already surpassed the United
States as the world’s biggest economy.
With this comes additional responsibilities, where a prominent
international artist like Jia Zhang-ke becomes a visionary spokesperson not
just for China, but for the world. While
his previous film 2013
Top Ten List #3 A Touch of Sin (Tian zhu ding) offered scathing criticism,
angrily charting the effects of dehumanization associated with economic
prosperity, this is a more intimate and sympathetic film, showing the haunting
effects of lost culture and heritage on a single family, sacrificed in the name
of economic success, for what is perceived as a greater good. However, like something seen in Sissako’s Timbuktu
(2014) or Rithy Panh’s 2013
Top Ten List #1 The Missing Picture (L'image manquante) , the connection to
not only one’s history and culture, but even one’s family can be wiped out in a
single generation (like the current flood of refugees escaping into Europe at
the moment), leaving in its wake a lost generation of rootless and exiled
people, estranged from their own identity.
There was a certain amount of apprehension reported when a Chinese Film
Bureau censorship logo was tagged onto the opening at the Cannes premiere, but
the emotional depth exhibited throughout is breathtaking, given a novelesque
narrative structure that thrives on well written and well defined
characters. Much like Hou Hsiao-hsien’s
THREE TIMES (2005), the film is divided into three historical sections, 1999,
2014, and 2025, which has a way of examining the downside of economic
prosperity, revealing how time wreaks havoc on a single family. The centerpiece of the film is the remarkable
performance by actress Zhao Tao, arguably the greatest in her entire career, as
she literally dominates this film from the opening shot. Brimming with the nationalistic optimism and
confidence of the new millennium in 1999, much like the opening scenes in the 80’s
from Jia’s PLATFORM (2000), a theatrical dance troupe performs an exhilarating
anthem-like Chinese dance routine to the buoyant sounds of “Go West” by the Pet
Shop Boys, Pet Shop Boys -
Go West [HD] - YouTube (4:53), where front and center is Zhao Tao as a
youthful Tao, a dance instructor in the small town of Fenyang (the filmmaker’s
hometown), looking to the future exhibiting an infectious happiness. While the color red has not been captured with
this degree of rapturous beauty since the May Day parade in Bertolucci’s 1900
(1977), it’s also shot in a boxed, TV sized 4:3 ratio, cramming plenty of
colorful spectacle into a smaller space, expanding ever wider with each
different historical period. The lush
colors on display, however, captured by cinematographer Nelson Yu Lik-wai, are
simply amazing, literally leaping off the screen. Surrounded by two suitors constantly at her
side, coal miner Liangzi (Liang Jin Dong), a longtime childhood friend and
business entrepreneur Zhang Jinsheng (Zhang Yi), a burgeoning capitalist, it
grows into a standoff between the egos of the two men, who eventually come to
despise one another, leaving Tao crushed with disappointment. But it’s fun while it lasts, evidenced by a
few carefree moments, but also a scene that targets the mindset of each
character, where Tao is impressed by the romantic melody of an old 1990 Hong
Kong pop ballad a customer plays in her corner store, 珍重 Take Care by Sally Yeh (beautifully contrasted
with the Pet Shop Boys), in between sharing noodles with Liangzi, while just to
impress her, Zhang buys the disc off the customer once they’ve left the store,
returning it to Tao as a token of his affection. The problem with Zhang is he’s always much
more interested in promoting himself, continually using money to impress
others, or in this case buy happiness, as Tao eventually picks Zhang. Liangzi leaves town on the spot, vowing never
to return.
Tao’s shortsightedness comes back to haunt her, though she
made what felt like the best choice, an indication of how one decision can
change the rest of your life, becoming an allegory about China and its future,
as by the next segment the happy couple (who we never see together) is already
divorced, where she remains in Fenyang, while Zhang is living with another
woman in the opulence of Shanghai, having gained custody of their only son, who
he’s ironically named “Dollar.” This
mid-section may be the most poignant, especially the toll it takes on Tao, as
she believes in her heart that her son will be better off with Zhang simply
because he’ll have more opportunities, where the film borders on melodrama, but
remains too well written, where she is a woman in constant search of herself,
becoming an epic love story that is defined by the absence of love. The centerpiece of this section is the death
of Tao’s aging father, which has a huge impact in her life. Sending for her son, who’s only about seven,
he doesn’t really even recognize her, and is confused what to call her, but
dutifully carries out his instructions, which his other Mom provides during
their daily skype sessions, also sending photos of a home they are planning to
move to in Australia. Infuriated by this
unwanted intervention, Tao tries to share a few moments with her son, including
a traumatizing but supremely colorful funeral service, where religious rituals
are a source of cultural heritage, yet when displayed so reverently through
cinema, they become time capsules of a specific era. Afterwards, taking the slow train (Dollar is
used to the fast train) so they’ll have more time together, Tao tries to
instill a sense of motherly devotion, handing him the keys to their home, but
this kid has everything given to him, who seemingly lacks for nothing, where
this entire trip is barely a blip on the radar.
Simultaneous to these events, Liangzi has wandered around like a nomad,
still working in the mines, where he eventually marries and has a son, but his
years in the mines have damaged his lungs, where death appears imminent without
expensive medical treatment. Like a
returning ghost, they arrive at his old doorstep, still locked and left as it
was from the day he left. Unable to
reach out for help himself, it’s his wife that turns to Tao for money, which
she willingly provides, surprised to see her old friend. The prominent theme of death in this section
announces the end of the old, while the new generation faces an uncertain
future. Amusingly, as if to suggest not
everything changes, there are recurring shots of a small child carrying a
traditional spear (Guangdong Broadsword), seen again having aged in each
subsequent section carrying that same spear.
This is reminiscent of a similar image in Kieslowski’s The
Decalogue (Dekalog) (1988-89) where a silent character is seen carrying a
kayak on his back and continually reappears in most segments, always remaining
wordless, where he bears witness to how people are living their lives, like a
reflection of moral conscience.
The final segment is easily the most strange, an unexpected
leap into the future, becoming an awkward experience for many viewers,
especially the Chinese, as the language spoken is mostly English. A similar experience occurred with Edward
Yang’s MAHJONG (1996), which also mixes global languages of English, French,
and Chinese, where the English-speaking and noticeably poor acting from the
English language actors was significantly off-putting, as it initially feels
here, where Dollar (Dong Zijian) is a young university student in Australia who
speaks exclusively English, who has to take Chinese classes to learn about his
own heritage. Legendary Taiwanese actress
Sylvia Chang, last seen five years ago in Buddha
Mountain (Guan yin shan) (2011), appears as the
Chinese college instructor named Mia, providing plenty of worldly character in
the role. Dollar is trying to exert his
own independence from his jaded father while Mia, an exile of Hong Kong by way
of Toronto, is navigating her way through a particularly nasty divorce. What stands out in this section is Dollar has
completely forgotten how to speak Mandarin Chinese, where he requires the
translation services of Mia to have a conversation with his own father. Making matters worse, he’s lost all
connections with his mother, where the luxury of his lifestyle has created a
mindset that allows him to live only in the present, with no need to revisit
the past, even for family occasions.
Lost in all this futuristic speculation is the presence of Tao, who is
the backbone of this film. Her absence
explains the awkwardness of the future, which accentuates the feeling of
displacement. Having no one else to turn
to, Mia and Dollar are drawn to each other for emotional support, which
presents its own problems, as he’s easily mistaken for her own son. Throughout it all, however, Tao’s looming
presence in the Australia sequence remains of critical importance, showing the
significance of distance not only as geography, but an emotional upheaval,
becoming an internalized trauma that expresses itself in unfamiliar ways. Equal parts hopeful and heartbreaking, with
recurring musical refrains from Yoshihiro Hanno that return like the changing
of the seasons, the music adds poetic resonance to the emotional weight of the
film. The real triumph, however, is the
fullness of Tao’s character, where it’s no accident that she gets the final
shot, where her indomitable spirit continues to soar. Jia remains the most astute chronicler of
changing times in Chinese society, where despite whatever critical qualms one
has with his multitude of choices, he remains an artist at the top of his game,
a superb master craftsman, resorting to almost literary measures to explore the
ramifications of the past on the present, cautioning us not to be so quick to
tear down the relics of the past in our zeal to build something new, but to
recognize the inherent value of cultural heritage (the exact opposite of ISIL’s
intentions in the Middle East, which is to completely wipe out the past),
adding a somber note on the theme of historical forgetfulness, carefully
revealing how economic and cultural forces continue to impact upon our lives,
whether we realize it or not.
3.) PHOENIX Phoenix A
Germany Poland (98 mi)
2014 ‘Scope d:
Christian Petzold Official
site
Speak low
when you speak, love,
Our summer day withers away
Too soon, too soon.
Speak low when you speak, love,
Our moment is swift, like ships adrift,
We’re swept apart too soon.
Speak low, darling speak low,
Love is a spark lost in the dark,
Too soon, too soon,
I feel wherever I go
That tomorrow is near, tomorrow is here
And always too soon.
Time is so old and love so brief,
Love is pure gold and time a thief.
We’re
late darling, we’re late,
The curtain descends, ev’rything ends
Too soon, too soon,
I wait darling, I wait
Will you speak low to me,
Speak love to me and soon.
—“Speak Low,” by Kurt Weill (written while in exile in
America) and Ogden Nash, 1943, Billie Holiday Speak Low YouTube (4:26)
Like the surprise hit of last year, 2014
Top Ten List #2 Ida, Christian Petzold returns to form with this tense,
brutally moving Holocaust drama that was inexplicably rejected by both Cannes
and Venice, displaying another level of newfound maturity in his still evolving
career with what is arguably his best film yet.
Like his others, it’s meticulously directed, but contains the most
complexly intriguing story he’s ever worked with, another showcase for actress
Nina Hoss, who is onscreen in nearly every shot in what is essentially an
intensely personal search for a newly constructed post-war German identity,
adapted by Petzold and the late Harun Farocki in his last screenplay, who
worked with Petzold on and off since his very first feature THE STATE I AM IN
(2000). Loosely based on Hubert
Monteilhet’s 1961 detective novel Le
Retour des Vendres (The Return of the Ashes), the film is accentuated by a
beautifully understated and low key jazz score that both begins and ends the
film, enticing the audience from the opening frame while also creating what is
the most haunting ending of any film seen this year. For a story
that explores human identity, you won’t find a more symmetrically perfect
screenplay from start to finish, where the formalism of its construction is
marked by an economy of intricate precision, but this is a throwback to a
Fassbinder style story where Germany is trying to come to terms with the evils
of its own troubled past, with shades of THE MARRIAGE OF MARIA BRAUN (1979) and
LILI MARLENE (1981), or an improvement on DESPAIR (1978), once more
embellishing upon a film noir theme, the third time Petzold has used this
device, where Yella
(2007) and Jerichow
(2008) were impressionistic reconstructions of earlier films CARNIVAL OF SOULS
(1962) and THE POSTMAN ALWAYS RINGS TWICE (1946), where this one utilizes
Georges Franju’s EYES WITHOUT A FACE (1960), as both use surgical
reconstruction to evoke the medical atrocities of Nazi SS officer Josef
Mengele’s fanatical quest for Aryan purity by performing deadly genetic
experiments on Auschwitz concentration camp victims. Hoss plays Nelly Lenz, a survivor of
Auschwitz who is shot in the face in the waning days of the war, having to
undergo painful facial reconstruction, introduced to the audience with her
entire head covered with protective bandages, where her surgeon suggests after
the war “a new face is an advantage,” as it allows one a fresh start in
life. Nelly, however, continues to dwell
on her former life, which is unknown to the viewer and only comes together in
bits and pieces, where her intentions remain shrouded in mystery for a good
deal of the film, only really revealing herself in the magnificence of the
final shot.
Described as a Trümmerfilm
(literally “rubble film”), narratively, the film has an interesting
structure to it, continually shifting the perspective through the eyes of
various characters while Nelly is forced to retreat into the background, lost
inside her head, unable to recognize herself or even speak after the operation,
where she’s painfully forced to admit that for all practical purposes, she no
longer exists, Phoenix (Christian Petzold, 2014
YouTube (4:47). Not only a war casualty,
rescued after spending two years in Auschwitz, her essential humanity has been
stripped from her as well, seen early on wandering through the bombed out ruins
of postwar Berlin searching for any semblance of her former life. With the help of a loyal friend Lene Winter
(Nina Kunzendorf), a clerk in the Hall of Jewish Records who painstakingly goes
through the files attempting to identify Nazi’s and reconstruct the lives of
the missing, Nelly returns to Berlin for plastic surgery and a chance for rest
and recovery, and while she’s not at all pleased with the results, finding it
difficult to live with herself, it does allow her the opportunity to rebuild
her shattered confidence. Lene’s
generosity and kindness are expressed in every frame, as she goes to great
measures to protect Nelly and insure she is as comfortable as possible,
consolidating her family assets, while it’s her fervent desire they may both
move to a new Zionist homeland currently envisioned as Palestine, a safe refuge
for Jews displaced by the war. What
better place to start a new life? A
staunch Nazi hater, Lene can’t continue to live among them or even bear
listening to German songs anymore, though for Nelly, she continues to find
rapturous delight in the Germany she once knew.
When shown pictures of Haifa, where they could live overlooking the sea,
there is a suggestion of sexual undertone when Nelly almost contemptuously
replies “I am not a Jew,” raising questions not only about her identity but her
state of mind, a stranger to the changing world around her as she insists upon
finding her lost husband Johnny, where thoughts of him were the only thing that
kept her alive in the dark days of the camps where she lost her entire
family.
As much about individual destinies as an emphasis on social
conditions, in their former lives Nelly was a cabaret singer to his piano
playing, so she searches the bars for any trace of him, finally discovering him
working as an impoverished busboy in a decadent Berlin night club appropriately
named Phoenix, a music hall beer drinking establishment for soldiers featuring
showgirls and musical entertainment, where we see a tawdry German rendition of
Cole Porter’s “Night and Day.” While she
is petrified at what he will think, Johnny, Ronald Zehrfeld from Barbara
(2012), doesn’t recognize her (described by the director in Cinema
Scope [Adam Neyman] as two ghosts that can’t recognize each other), too
busy scraping by at the bottom end of the wage scale. Undeterred, she tries again, introducing
herself as Esther (the name of her dead sister), to which he replies, “There
aren’t many of those left,” where her persistence gets her thrown out of the club,
but Johnny has other ideas, concocting an idea where he can use her resemblance
to impersonate his dead wife who stands to inherit the family fortune locked
away in a Swiss bank, becoming a mad homage to Hitchcock’s Vertigo
(1958), both men haunted by the tragic loss of their dead wives, literally
trying to reinvent them with another woman, training them to look, act, and
talk the same, wearing the same clothes and hair style, as if resurrecting a
ghost. Despite the wickedness of
Johnny’s harebrained scheme, Nelly allows herself to be used, literally playing
the part of herself, clinging to the beleaguered hopes that her husband would
recognize her for who she is, at one point feverishly waking up Lene in the
middle of the night to excitedly reveal, “I know he loves her” (referring to
herself), but Johnny is equally certain of her death. Lene has no interest in Johnny and in fact
despises him, warning Nelly that it was Johnny who betrayed her to the Gestapo,
where according to records she uncovered he was arrested two days before and
was released on the same day as her arrest.
Lene’s profound influence over this film is remarkable, noted by her
clear, unambiguous archival revelations and her measured assurance, as she
comes to represent the Jewish reaction “after” the war, a voice of unwavering
authority that some have chosen to ignore to this very day. Refusing to believe the man she loves is a
Nazi collaborator, having spent months during wartime hiding in a hole, Nelly
has her own doubts, where her shattered interior world struggles to heal, but
she willingly plays along with his tortuous game, and in doing so the audience
delves even deeper into Johnny’s dubious personality.
Delving into realms of moral duplicity, Petzold builds
suspense by continually allowing unanswered questions to linger, where the
audience remains in doubt whether Johnny ever loved her or could actually
expose her to the Nazi’s, and is he just pretending not to know her real
identity? All the characters come under
a broader cloud of suspicion in the immediate aftermath of the war, as who
among them was not a willing participant?
What friends and neighbors were also collaborators and betrayers? How many ordinary citizens simply looked the
other way? The setting itself is fraught
with fear and suspicion, where the tantalizing mood is drenched in a
suffocating atmosphere of dread. The
deeper one gets into the psychological plight of each character, the more the
world around them is stained by the toxic lead-in to war. Perhaps most revealing is a family photograph
that Nelly discovers taken before the war, where circles have been placed
around the heads of those identified as Nazi’s while crosses are placed above
those that are now dead. It’s a
horrifying notion to think that one’s fondest memories have been defiled and
contaminated by the despicable acts of one’s own country. Brilliantly conceived and masterfully
crafted, Petzold reaches elevated territory in this impressionistic
psychological mosaic that becomes a literal postwar reawakening to the reality
of the world around them. Joining the
ranks of essential postwar films, Petzold shows how delusion becomes a coping
mechanism for an enveloping madness, like Johnny, whose refusal to recognize
his wife (or the role he played in her capture) is not by accident, as he comes
to signify those ordinary citizens blinded by their own willful collusion,
refusing to see their own complicity in the crimes taking place around them,
which may start out as fear or a defense mechanism, but saving themselves at
any cost ends up becoming a way of life that eventually leads to the
Holocaust. Many more lives are lost to
suicide even after the war is over as a result of “collateral damage,” a
descent into a moral disillusionment that evokes a special note of
sadness. But this is ultimately a film
about Nelly, a lone survivor whose longing to claw her way back into a
reconstructed German society represents the need of an entire nation, where the
agonizing doubts and concerns are reflected in the marvelously subtle
performance by Nina Hoss, who is the real star of the show in a remarkable
portrait of a devastated society suffering the impact of enormous historic
crimes, where the postwar debacle is revealed in the broken wreckage of fallen
debris and ruined lives. Shot in the
Brandenburg region in Germany by Hans Fromm’s dark cinematography, with a few
shots in Wroclaw, Poland, the jazz score by Stefan Will is particularly
expressive, setting the tone of eloquent, emotional restraint. If this film does anything, however, it
delivers enormously with a huge payoff in the virtuosic final scene, where
everything in the entire film leads to this moment, and Petzold delivers with
one of the great cinematic endings that resonates so powerfully that it will
become one of the most discussed shots in the annals of cinema history, Speak Low performed by Nina
Hoss @ Phoenix YouTube (3:01, recommend not to be watched until “after”
seeing the film), where part of its power is its unexpectedness, yet according
to the director, TIFF
Review: Petzold's “Phoenix” Soars – City By Heart, the ending plays out
quite differently in front of German audiences.
By itself, it’s hardly spectacular, but seen in context with everything
that has come before, the composite effect is simply stunning, an indictment of
Johnny, and the nation’s, collective forgetfulness, where the specter of the
past seeps into the uncertain present and all lingering questions and concerns
are finally put to rest.
An excerpt from Jeffrey Fleishman’s interview with the
director from The LA Times, July 29,
2015, World
Cinema: Christian Petzold's 'Phoenix' haunted by ...
The eerie mood and questions
raised by “Phoenix” have intrigued Petzold.
He said his next film will be set in the 1940’s in the French town of
Marseille as refugees hide and hurry to catch boats to Mexico as the German
army closes in. Part of him, he said,
wants to capture the aura and verve of German filmmakers, such as Fritz Lang
and Max Ophüls, who fled to America to escape Hitler.
“The light from Germany went to
the U.S.A. in the 1930s,” he said. “We
have to bring the light and style back to Germany, especially the noir which
was created by Austrian and German refugees.”
4.) THE SALT OF THE EARTH The Salt of the Earth A-
France Brazil Italy
(110 mi) 2014 d: Wim
Wenders co-director: Juliano Ribeiro Salgado
For German director Wim Wenders, it all came down to a
photograph that he kept in his office for years, a black and white portrait
from the mid 1980’s of a blind woman from Mali conveying a feeling of such
profound depth and supreme sadness that it served as a constant reminder of the
kind of power and impact that art can have on the human soul. Shot by Brazilian photojournalist Sebastião Salgado, this distinctive artistic
voice becomes the focus of the film, much like Wenders’ earlier Oscar nominated
documentaries BUENA VISTA SOCIAL CLUB (1999) and Pina in 3D
(2011), where Salgado literally narrates his life story in a film that examines
his life and his work. The project
originated with his son, Juliano Ribeiro Salgado, one of the principal
cinematographers attempting to make a documentary on the life of his father,
eventually bringing in Wenders to offer perspective and help shape his overall
vision. The outcome is a work of
maturity and profound significance, where the subtle influence of Wenders in
helping to choose the photographs by Salgado that moved him the most adds a
surprising depth, basically allowing the pictures to tell the story. Born in the lush hills of Brazil where the
rain forest connects to farmland, Salgado earned a master’s degree in economics
and began to work for the International Coffee Organization, often traveling
overseas for the World Bank, where it was his wife Lélia that introduced him to
a camera, forming a working partnership, as she now edits and produces his
work. Developing an interest in
photography while working in Africa in the early 70’s, most notably pictures he
took in Niger, Salgado studied photography while living in Paris, initially
working on news assignments before developing an interest in photojournalism,
specializing in social documentary photography of workers in impoverished third
world nations. One of his first
assignments was photographing as many as a hundred thousand mud-covered
workers, in lines stretching as far as the eye can see, onto rickety ladders plunging
into the depths of deep pits in a mammoth Brazilian gold mine called Serra
Pelada in the 1980’s, a bleak metaphor for the brutal history of a Dante Inferno
human hell on earth, where the unforgettable images resemble the opening
Biblical era slave sequences in Kubrick’s Spartacus
(1960), showing the backbreaking efforts of workers slaving under the hot sun
pressed in such close proximity to one another that they resemble ants in an
anthill carrying packs of dirt on their backs, climbing up and down the
precarious wooden ladders all day.
Because of the use of mercury in the gold extraction, the area is now
contaminated and the mines abandoned, leaving a giant open pit filled with
polluted water.
Working on long-term, self-assigned projects that are
eventually published as books, Salgado has witnessed some of the most extreme
horrors of human experience—war, poverty, greed, famine, genocide, and
disasters. The film is largely a series
of photographs shown in what is essentially a slide show narrated by Salgado
speaking about the circumstances under which they were taken, reliving a
certain autobiographical period of his life, like a film within a film, where
the viewer gets the impression Wenders is examining a fellow documentarian
reflecting upon his own work. While
there are lovely, poetic touches throughout, the film is a painstakingly
meticulous Robert Flaherty style documentation of the bleakness of the human
condition as seen through photographs that couldn’t e more sorrowful and
mesmerizing, and while the voiceover narration provides perspective, it hardly
matches the power of the images. In the
decades of the 80’s and 90’s, Salgado immersed himself into the middle of some
of the most brutally terrible and disastrous events of our age, genocides in
Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia, relentless wars, famine, the pitiful human
existence in overrun and medically plagued refugee camps, and large-scale
environmental disasters like the burning of the oil fields in Kuwait. Perhaps based on his economic background, he
concentrates on how it is always the poor who are the most vulnerable and the
worst effected, showing how easily the privileged class remains aloof and a
safe distance removed from these catastrophes, where the weakness and
ineffectiveness of the world’s response is equally calamitous, as people
continue to go about their lives completely unaffected. While Salgado and Wenders are obviously
personally driven, self-motivated, and wildly passionate about their work, it
remains an open question what effect, if any, their work has in influencing the
rapidly changing world around them. The
global economy has had a remarkable effect internationally, where land and jobs
that were once plentiful have dried up and all but disappeared, leaving behind
a blighted stain of toxic pollution and personal horrors. One can’t help but be dumbfounded by the
gut-wrenching experiences Salgado continued to seek out, each one more
devastatingly bleak and gruesome than the last, where he witnessed one African
genocide after another, watching uncountable numbers of people dying right
before his eyes, where despite his deep personal commitment to document these
images, one of the few who did, the rest of the world inexplicably preferred to
look away. It’s hard to think of another
film that makes such a compelling case for making the most out of one’s life,
where one man puts himself on the line repeatedly, risking death and
deprivation over an extensive period of time, immersing himself in the most
horrible war ravaged regions on earth, using only a camera as his voice.
While it’s hard to know just what drives the man or
inspires his work, by documenting Salgado’s efforts with this degree of intense
scrutiny, Wenders is immortalizing the power of his art, elevating his own
artistic relevance in the process, as if making the case before the world of
public opinion. How can one choose to
look away? Perhaps more than presidents
or political leaders, Sebastião Salgado has had an amazing influence on his
fellow man, as there are few cameras around to witness human atrocities, few
have gone through what he voluntarily witnessed and experienced, adding untold
emotional layers of depth through the artistry of his pictures. One
assumes there is a moral imperative behind this work, that the camera has the
power to offer a voice to the voiceless, that there is an unmitigated force of
good behind every image, as each is so carefully composed in such a distinct
social setting. Who are the
disadvantaged that still roam the earth?
Largely invisible in reality wherever they go, so far removed from the
mainstream, they resemble the dinosaurs we read about in science books, all but
eradicated and extinct in our mind’s eyes, where we’ve lost any personal
connection to their “living” lives. When
did their lives start to lose meaning?
It was the documentaries of Robert Flaherty and others that brought
these exotic images of people in such faraway places to life, where images we
could never conjure up in our limited education and collective imaginations
suddenly burst into life onscreen, adding depth and extension to our knowledge,
perhaps questioning the playfulness of the filmmaker’s methods, but leaving no
doubt as to the cultural accuracy of an ethnically different way of life. Flaherty’s approach, like Salgado, was to
live within an existing community, become familiar with their way of life, and
understand their story, so to speak, “before” shooting the pictures. Who knows what drove Salgado to some of the
most extreme places on Earth, spending years on each individual project, like
visiting a remote Amazon tribe, having a unique ability to befriend total
strangers, becoming embedded within the culture depicted in each individual
photograph, where decades later he still warmly remembers not just the context
of the photo but the individuals he spent time with. After three decades, Salgado returns to his
native Brazil, retiring to his family farm, united with an adult son he barely
knew while globetrotting around the planet, where he undergoes a regenerative
rebirth of the spirit, transforming the drought-ridden, dried out lands around
him through a major restoration project of building a new rainforest ecosystem,
replanting specifically indigenous species native to the region, literally
creating new plant life that had died and disappeared, a victim of global
climate change, calling it his Genesis
project, conceived as a potential path to humanity’s rediscovery of itself in
nature. While he may take solace in
finding some degree of natural balance, where he can once again walk along the
lush grounds, it’s the harrowing images of his life’s work that will remain
imprinted in our collective subconscious, where seeing such large masses of war
refugees is particularly disturbing, ghostly images of starving children,
displaced people trekking across the Sahara, and they are the lucky ones that
survived, where Salgado himself was moved to despair, expressing his outrage,
“We humans are terrible animals.”
“Everyone should see these images,” he reminds us, “to see how terrible
our species is.” Somber and profoundly
meditative, few films leave such a definitive cinematic impact afterwards.
5.) LEVIATHAN
(Leviafan) Leviathan
(Leviafan) A-
Russia (140
mi) 2014
‘Scope d: Andrei Zvyagintsev
Canst thou draw out leviathan
with an hook?
or his tongue
with a cord which thou lettest down?
Canst
thou put an hook into his nose? or
bore his jaw through with a thorn?
Will he make many supplications unto thee?
will he speak soft words unto thee?
Will he
make a covenant with thee? wilt thou take him for a
servant for ever?
Wilt thou play with him as with a bird? or wilt thou bind him for thy maidens?
Shall the
companions make a banquet of him? shall they part him
among the merchants?
Canst thou fill his skin with barbed
irons? or his head with fish spears?
Lay thine
hand upon him, remember the battle, do no more.
Behold, the hope of him is in vain: shall
not one be cast down even at the sight of him?
None is
so fierce that dare stir him up: who then is able to stand before me?
—Job 41:1 – 10
The first Russian film to win a Golden Globe award for Best Foreign
Film (Leviathan by Andrey Zvyagintsev Takes Golden Globe and FIPRESCI
Prize) since Sergei Bondarchuk’s WAR AND PEACE in 1969, which went on to
win an Academy Award in the same category, while Nikita Mikhalkov’s BURNT BY
THE SUN (1994) was the last Russian film to win an Academy Award. Continuing in a series of bold and audacious
Russian films that attempt to authenticate the abysmal conditions there, where
the remnants of Stalinist brutality are everywhere to be seen, especially the
way ordinary citizens continually pay the price for rampant government
corruption that continues unabated.
Human lives are seen as disposable, murder and lies are condoned, so
long as it protects the good standing of those currently in power. While this is a particularly bleak worldview,
it’s consistent with the equally distressing themes from other films coming out
of Russia, where the most gruesome are Alexei Balabanov’s CARGO 200 (2007) and
Sergei Loznitsa’s My
Joy (Schastye moe) (2010), but also Aleksei Popogrebsky’s spare and
beautiful 2010
Top Ten Films of the Year: #6 How I Ended This Summer, Boris Khlebnikov’s A
Long and Happy Life (Dolgaya schastlivaya zhizn) (2013), both featuring the
ruggedness of a barren location, and Yuri Bykov’s equally memorable The
Major (Mayor) (2013) and 2014
Top Ten List #9 The Fool (Durak), which prominently feature Dostoyevskian
themes of dubious morality on display.
In each of these films, Russia is depicted much like a western in the
days of the Wild West frontier where there was scant evidence of any civilized
rule of law, where men had to stand up for themselves and only the strongest
survived, usually through bloodshed.
LEVIATHAN, however, is not just a good movie in a similar vein, but it’s
particularly well-made, where the acting is superb, the cinematography by
Mikhail Krichman is simply astonishing, while the editing and sound design are
exceptional, with music from Philip Glass’s opera Akhnaten, Philip
Glass - Akhnaten HQ [Prelude; Refrain, Verse 1 ... YouTube (10:46), with
that throbbing church organ blasting into the stratosphere at about the four
and a half minute mark, where this particular attention to craftsmanship and
meticulous detail is rare in cinema today, especially in an era of scarce
funding. One of the most important
filmmakers working today, Zvyagintsev continues to make relevant films, where
his starkly austere and emotionally spare first film THE RETURN (2003) won
first prize at the Venice Film Festival and remains his most mystifyingly
unique, while THE BANISHMENT (2007) and Elena (2011)
are both reflective of his mastery over the medium.
Partly inspired by the real-life incident of Marvin
Heemeyer who in 2004 went on a violent rampage demolishing the town hall
and the mayor’s property in the small town of
A new face arrives on the scene, an old army friend Dmitri
(Vladimir Vdovichenkov), Kolya’s former senior officer, now a hot-shot attorney
in Moscow who has to acknowledge that on the face of it things don’t look good,
that the cards are stacked in the Mayor’s favor, instituting a plan to dig up
the dirt on the Mayor and confront him with publicizing his misdeeds, which may
pressure him to change his mind. While
he has some initial success, as Vadim is flabbergasted that some slick Moscow
attorney has such high level contacts to expose him, where in desperate
straights, Vadim calls in his advisors to double check his options, but despite
his pattern of cronyism, they remind him not to get so worked up, that things
will work out, while also scheduling a personal appointment with the Orthodox
priest, which turns out to be a most curious visit. It’s important to understand that after the
fall of the Soviet regime, the Russian Orthodox Church moved in and merged with
the State, quickly reclaiming valuable real estate not only from factories and
bureaucratic institutions but also from schools and hospitals, where a new
church was being constructed seemingly on every street corner. These construction projects were funded by
entrepreneurs aligned with the government and more often than not involved
bribing local officials, where overnight studying The Bible became a mandatory subject in schools while the head of
the Church was wearing a forty thousand dollar wristwatch. This sudden spurt of economic growth as a
byproduct of rampant corruption is right out of Fassbinder’s LOLA (1981), where
attempts at ethical reform and following the letter of the law are set aside
for the sake of expedience. Dmitri is so
sure of himself, using the power of the law to empower a David over a Goliath,
that he reaps the benefits of an overly grateful friend by sleeping with his
wife, something that comes as a shock to the audience, but Kolya has lost all
rational comprehension and has veered into delirium and near incapacity from
excessive drinking, so he’s oblivious to what’s going on. Dmitri, however, has already asked Lilya to
return to
While the film is a critique of abuse of power, exposing
how capitalism makes for strange bedfellows, while also drawing a larger
picture of moral authority, actually bringing in the word of God in order to
grasp the profound depths of the situation.
Job continually found himself at the mercy of the Lord, who tested his
faith by a seeming limitless capacity to endure whatever obstacle God placed in
his path. But the parable of the
entitled Leviathan taken from The Bible
suggests there are powers greater than any man can endure, where death is but
one of them. The looming portrait of
Putin hanging on the walls of the State offices is impossible to miss. What elevates this particular film from
others about corruption is how it connects the Russian Orthodox Church to the
power of the Russian State, where their common interests are not for the
benefit of people needing their services, but instead becomes an undaunted
power grab, much like Henry VIII declaring himself the Supreme Head of the Church of
England, where absolute power can do whatever it wants, steal, lie, kidnap,
murder, inflict harm, declare war, or act irrationally and still continue to
get away with it. While Dmitri will soon
discover he lacks this ultimate authority, he was nonetheless deluded enough to
believe for a moment that he did through the power of law. The fatalism of Roma and his friends,
resigned to forever being outsiders, is the fate of the next generation knowing
their future is doomed under the same unquestioned authority. Lilya is perhaps the most anguished soul of
them all, largely because she has the capacity to envision a better life, as
Russia toyed with the idea of a democracy, but also watched that vision go down
in defeat at the hands of absolute power, where she is similarly forced to
accept a world with no future while capitulating to those who would take
everything away from her in the process.
Kolya, on the other hand, has fended off every disaster with a sorrow
rooted deeply within his Russian soul, but all that’s left is an instilled
blindness, a brutal punishment with no chance of spiritual ascension, where
drunken excess numbing the pain is the only way to endure the present, where
there are simply no more thoughts about tomorrow. In dramatic fashion, Zvyagintsev stages a
drunken shooting party like The
Last Supper, a vodka-fueled picnic where Kolya and his brethren of friends
display spectacular humor at the Kafkaesque absurdity of their lives living in
a Russian “shithole,” which is a mere fantasy or prelude of freedom, allowing
their exaggerated, out of control behavior to grow to grotesque levels of
excess, while the real events that matter will soon follow afterwards, where
their lives are about to unravel, twisted into unrecognizable pieces of their
former selves, beleaguered characters broken by an indomitable wind that blows
over the land.
6.) CAROL Carol A- 94
USA Great Britain (118 mi) 2015 Official
site
What
a strange girl you are. Flung out of space! —Carol Aird (Cate Blanchett)
Todd Haynes has made the finest film of his career, a
glowing tribute to all the gay romance stories that were never told during the
golden era of Hollywood, a different kind of love story told with such eloquent
restraint, yet it’s a story that’s been waiting perhaps a hundred years to be
told, charged with extraordinary cinematography by Ed Lachman, shot on Super 16
mm with subdued tones and ultra-saturated colors that stand out brilliantly,
where the suppressed emotion is the engine that drives the film
throughout. Described by John Waters in Artforum magazine (John Waters -
artforum.com / in print), “Maybe the only way to be transgressive these
days is to be shockingly tasteful. This
Lana Turner–meets–Audrey Hepburn lipstick-lesbian melodrama is so old-fashioned
I felt like I was one year old after watching it. That’s almost reborn.” The film is without question an adult drama,
where it never overreaches, as little to nothing is explained in political
terms to the audience, yet the dramatic emotions are shockingly clear, while
the two lead performances are among the best and most enduring of the year. Adapted from the 1952 Patricia Highsmith
lesbian-themed novel The Price of Salt,
when the aftereffects of McCarthyism and 50’s conservatism are still in full
swing, a period of vicious national anti-gay bias and continual witch-hunts,
where according to Highsmith in a postscript to the novel many years later,
“Those were the days when gay bars were a dark door somewhere in Manhattan,
where people wanting to go to a certain bar got off the subway a station before
or after the convenient one, lest they were suspected of being
homosexual.” The compact nature of the
story and the sheer intimacy makes it feel more like an extended short story,
as what’s so delicious to enjoy cinematically are the exquisite depth of
characters, a luminous look, and tiny details where the subtleties make all the
difference, with Carter Burwell’s musical score adding a quiet, prodding sense
of urgency. When this film is over, it’s
as if we’ve known these two women all our lives.
Haynes has worked his entire career to achieve what no
other American director has ever accomplished, to bring a cinema of
transgression into the mainstream, where this prim and proper and all too
conventional film clearly reflects the influence of women’s films of the 40’s
and 50’s that were often derided at the time, yet today are viewed completely
differently, as if they incorporate subversive commentary, becoming
psychological studies of complex female characters, much like his first extended
television mini-series of MILDRED PIERCE (2011) was a remake of a 1945 Michael
Curtiz film and ALL THAT HEAVEN ALLOWS (2002) was a reworking of a 1955 Douglas
Sirk film. Each focuses on what’s going
on under the surface, as in that era it was the only place that gays and
lesbians were allowed to express themselves, as what could be viewed on the
surface could be used against them, as simply being gay was sufficient grounds
to deny work, housing, and social opportunities, not to mention the unleashing
of punitive legal restrictions when it came to love. Even the novel upon which the film is based
was published under the pseudonym of Claire Morgan and under a different title,
as the author always wanted the title to be Carol
(retitled in 1990 only after publishing it in her own name) according to
screenwriter Phyllis Nagy who was friends with Highsmith, with the contents
reflecting the obstacles any lesbian couple would likely encounter in the
mid-20th century, adding to the confusion of many coming-of-age women, as any
expression of gay and lesbian desires was not only frowned upon but
outlawed. According to Highsmith, at the
time, homosexuals in fiction “had to pay for their deviation by cutting their
wrists, drowning themselves in a swimming pool, or by switching to
heterosexuality… or by collapsing — alone and miserable and shunned — into a
depression equal to hell.” As the only
novel written by Highsmith that is outside the crime genre, Haynes points out
“it is completely consistent with the rest of her work. But in this case, the crime is love, and the
love is illegal,” where the defiant optimism of the book has always been viewed
as radical social content, as it’s one of the rare lesbian love stories of its
time that remains guardedly hopeful and optimistic.
Interesting that the origin of the story has real-life
roots, as Highsmith used to work part-time at Macy’s in New York in the doll
department, where she was so struck by the elegance of a particular woman,
Kathleen Senn, a “blondish woman in a fur coat,” who came in looking for a doll
for her child that she wrote down her address in Park Ridge, New Jersey from
the sale’s slip, taking a train and cab out to her house on her day’s off just
to spy on her, though they never met again.
But that night, after seeing the woman in the store, Highsmith went home
and wrote out the plot for the novel.
“All my life work will be an undedicated monument to a woman,” Highsmith
wrote in her diary in 1942, ten years before the novel was published. “I see her the same instant she sees me, and
instantly, I love her… Instantly, I am terrified, because I know she knows I am
terrified and that I love her.” Only
afterwards did she learn the woman was a troubled alcoholic who killed herself
in the garage from the exhaust fumes of a running car, but this was the
original inspiration for The Price of
Salt. In addition, Highsmith recalls
the personal circumstances of one of her former lovers, Virginia Kent
Catherwood, a wealthy Philadelphia socialite she first met in New York in 1944,
whose debutante ball in December 1933 was reportedly the most lavish party in
Philadelphia since the Depression, who lost custody of her child in a
particularly scandalous divorce that was the subject of gossip columns in the
1940’s, where a tape recording of her and one of her lovers in a hotel bedroom
was used against her in court. Written
from the perspective of a young Manhattan shopgirl named Therese Belivet
(Rooney Mara), the book is ostensibly “an interior monologue of her thoughts,”
according to Nagy, using an experimental, stream-of-conscious point of view,
where “Therese is (Highsmith’s) alter ego, so she isn’t a character — she’s the
voice of an author.” Nagy, who wrote her
first draft of the script a decade ago, had to rework the ghostly presence of
the author in Therese’s character, reconstructing a new personality through the
incandescent subtlety of Mara’s performance, instilling in her the shy and
naïve qualities of a younger woman in her twenties (only 19 in the book) still discovering
herself while yearning for a wealthier woman considerably older and more
confident in Carol Aird (Cate Blanchett), who just happens to stroll into her
department store counter one day over the Christmas holiday leaving a lasting
impression that won’t let go.
While Carol, in effect, represents the object of
Patricia Highsmith’s own desire, bearing an odd similarity to the Hitchcock
blonde, she is immediately seen as a glamorous, charismatic, and
self-assured woman pursuing her own interests, though we quickly realize her
personal relationship with her husband Harge (Kyle Chandler) is on the
rocks. While they live separately, he continues
to dominate her life by making threats and demands, and while his alcoholic
behavior tends towards abusive when things aren’t going his way, that doesn’t
stop him in his perpetual quest to control her, which includes their shared
4-year old daughter Rindy (played by two child actresses, Sadie and Kk Heim)
that Carol pampers with constant affection.
While they represent the icy coolness of upper class wealth, with
well-established emotional distance and reserve, Therese is plagued by the
incessant attention from her well-intentioned boyfriend Richard (Jake Lacy) who
reminds her at every opportunity that their summer will be spent voyaging to
Europe in hopes that they will marry. It’s
hard not to forget that perfectly well-intentioned husbands routinely confined
their wives to housework and to the kitchen in this time period. While he’s obviously smitten by her beauty,
she’s under no such spell, remaining indifferent to his advances, but
appreciating his friendship. When Carol
asks to meet for lunch, it’s a cautious meeting, with so much going on under
the surface, ending prematurely with the interruption of a friend, which leads
to a subsequent invite to Carol’s lavish home.
The first time they’re alone is expressed in a car ride leading out of
the city into the scenic countryside, with Therese taking pictures of Carol
buying a Christmas tree, where the impressionistic mosaic seen from the
reflection in the window is utterly intoxicating, where despite few words being
spoken, it’s an enthralling moment, beautifully capturing the initial signs of
being in love, so perfectly integrated into the rest of the film, which
couldn’t be more understated. Instead of
an idyllic afternoon alone in her home, playing the piano or listening the LP
records of jazz recordings, their interlude is broken up by the intrusion of
Harge, who grows increasingly upset by the presence of Therese, leading to a
full-fledged rant about her lifestyle, where Carol had an affair years earlier
with her best friend Abby (Sarah Paulson), and he’s obviously alarmed and suspicious
of more of the same. Fuming out of the
house with Rindy in tow, Harge spends the holiday in Florida with his parents,
while Carol, visibly upset, abruptly drives Therese to the train station.
Despite the obvious hysterics, more is yet to come, as
Harge petitions a judge for full custody of Rindy, claiming Carol’s pattern of
attraction to other women violates a Morals
clause, sending her into a depressive swoon of emotional turmoil, becoming
a Sirkian melodrama where her rights are being subjected to the narrow views of
a husband and ultimately a judge, both male, which has the effect of tightening
the noose around her lifestyle. With
limited options, Carol decides to take a lengthy road trip to alleviate the
stress, inviting Therese along, where Richard, seeing her pack, feels just as
suspicious as Harge, both men feeling the effects of losing their controlling
interests, where mistrust leads to an untidy break up. The road trip is deceptively subdued, filled
with small moments, where everything is strange and ambiguous, including
roadside encounters that make it clear Haynes is a fan of Edward
Hopper, with little to note except the tenderness that builds between them,
where they are literally reconstructing their lives in a vacuum, standing
outside all intruding conventions of society, taking their time, feeling like a
kind of slowly paced, wish fulfillment coming out
party, where politeness and manner enter into the equation, yet most of all
there is a developing need to be needed, while continually hanging over any
buildup of erotic tension is the lingering custody of a young girl. It’s not until Waterloo, Iowa, ironically,
that they consummate their desires, where it’s more suggested than revealed,
expressed with inordinate taste and refinement.
By the time they get to Chicago, however, staying in the swank elegance
of the Drake Hotel, their momentary bliss comes to a crashing halt when Carol
learns they’ve been secretly tape recorded by an unsavory detective hired by
her husband working undercover. While it
hardly feels like forbidden love, as in Haynes’ hands it’s positively ordinary,
yet it has taken until June 26, 2013 for same-sex marriage to become the law of
the land in the United States, so the film itself, set in a flashback
structure, where we see the same scene from utterly different perspectives both
at the beginning and near the end, is a historical flashback into our own
discriminatory pasts when the dominant ideology forbid it and lives were ruined
because of it. Haynes’ protagonists
couldn’t be less subversive, yet at the time they were viewed as abnormal,
disrupting social order, setting a dangerous precedent for our children. It’s the all-consuming tenderness of the
protagonists that sets this film apart, where rarely have we ever seen
intelligent characters be so quietly civil and display such well-construed
politeness, yet their romantic affairs are continually interrupted in the
harshest manner possible, with their lives upended by society’s dominant
interests, showing little regard for the emotional upheaval it caused, all
protected by the enormous power of the law.
To think all this wisdom eluded us for so many years. The final, silent encounter is nothing short
of stunning, a rare glimpse of poetry in motion, where the smallest moments are
the most miraculous.
While not exactly a prequel, but a reimagining of an
original story used in an earlier film, MY SEX LIFE…OR HOW I GOT INTO AN
ARGUMENT (1996), which was a sprawling three-hour French relationship
talkathon, while in this film Desplechin has resurrected the central character
of Paul Dédalus, played nineteen years apart in both films by Mathieu Amalric,
who opens the film as a present day character remembering events occurring in
the late 80’s and early 90’s, where a more accurate French title translates to Three Remembrances of My Youth. Winner of the SACD Prize (Best Screenplay) in
the Director’s Fortnight at Cannes, the director (along with Julie Peyr) has
written a memory play that explores the Proustian autobiographical memories of
the Dédalus character from childhood through adolescence, told in three
segments, where the first two, Childhood
and Russia, preface a larger story
entitled Esther that blends into the
early periods of MY SEX LIFE, a film that falls within a great tradition of
French coming-of age-films, having made some of the best, including Truffaut’s The
400 Blows (Les quatre cents coups) (1959), Téchiné’s Wild
Reeds (Les Roseaux Sauvages) (1994), and Assayas’s Cold
Water (L’eau Froide) (1994). The
brief opening sequences are actually the weakest in the entire film, as the
viewer doesn’t have a handle yet on Paul Dédalus, or even a connection to the
earlier film. Instead he’s seen as a
middle-aged man leaving his lover, returning to Paris for a government post in
Foreign Affairs after spending a decade working as a scholar and anthropologist
in Tajikistan. It’s only at the airport
where he’s stopped and questioned, interrogated by a French official, dutifully
performed by Resnais regular André Dussollier, with questions about his
passport, which shifts the film into a lengthy flashback sequence, often
expressed through a round (iris) frame, a holdover technique from the Silent
era, suggesting memories of long ago, recounting three seminal moments from his
past. Like Truffaut’s young ruffian
alter-ego character Antoine Doinel, a petrified 11-year old Paul Dédalus
(Antoine Bui) also ran away from his home in Roubaix escaping from his deranged
mother, depicted in a panicked German Expressionist horror scene where he holds
her off with a knife (shadows appearing on a staircase), warning her not to
come any closer, before running away to his kindly great-aunt Rose, Françoise
Lebrun, who played Veronika in The
Mother and the Whore (La Maman et la Putain) (1973), looking better than
ever, observed by a curious young Paul as the affectionate recipient of a sweet
lesbian kiss. While he’s sad to learn of
his mother’s suicide shortly thereafter (claiming he never loved her), it has a
permanent effect on his emotionally depressed father (Olivier Rabourdin), whose
mind is elsewhere and is unable to look after his children, where Paul along
with his sister and younger brother share their formative teenage years raising
themselves.
However, this does not account for why there is another
Paul Dédalus living in Australia with a registered passport using the same
birthdate and birthplace. For that, the
scene shifts to Russia, where Paul takes an eventful student high school trip
to Minsk in the USSR as an idealistic 16-year old, now played by Quentin
Dolmaire, turning into an amateur spy thriller when he along with his Jewish friend
Marc (Elyot Milshtein) agree to help the Refuseniks (Refuseniks
- Jewish Virtual Library), sneaking away from a student tour of the
National Arts Museum to help a group of Russian Jews denied permission to leave
the country, providing secret packages filled with money, while Paul goes so
far as to offer his passport, allowing someone else to assume his
identity. To cover for his own lost
passport, he gives himself a black eye and claims he was mugged and his
passport stolen. Filled with plenty of
Cold War tension, including bribing a suspicious police officer that stops them
with a pack of American cigarettes, the young boys actually pull it off,
blending into his teenage years where he’s with his sister Delphine (Lily
Taieb) and brother Ivan (Raphaël Cohen) watching television footage of the fall
of the Berlin Wall, which Paul finds sad as “I can see my childhood
ending.” But most of all he remembers
Esther, played by Lou Roy-Lecollinet, an absolute delight as the girl of his
dreams, the beauty of his eye, and his soulmate, something he realizes from the
moment he sets eyes on her, as she’s “the one,” a dazzling beauty who is mature
beyond her years, amusingly aware of the effect she has on men, and couldn’t
care less what others think of her, an earlier version of the same character
played by Emmanuelle Devos in MY SEX LIFE.
Inviting her to come to a party at their father’s house (believing he is
away), Desplechin perfectly frames her entrance, shifting to slow motion with
her initial appearance, where celestial music honors her as the Goddess of Love
and Beauty. The same device is used
several times, each time more amusing than the next, as this is exactly how
high school boys envision their first love.
They’re not just “in love,” but the moon and the stars orbit around her
very presence. Paul has a clever way of
showing his interest, especially when she shows up with somebody else, which is
to ignore her while she dances with all the other guys, staring ponderously at
her throughout, waiting until the guy she came with decides to leave, expecting
to take her home, but she insists upon staying, rudely telling him to scram. Thus begins the long journey of a tumultuous
decade-long love affair, but that night, all he does is walk her home,
romantically walking through the city streets just before daybreak, awkwardly
trying to make clever conversation, confessing whatever comes out of his mouth,
which she finds amusing, ending the night with the cinematic perfection of a
gentle kiss, conveying in our eyes exactly how he feels and just what she means
to him.
These two, Roy-Lecollinet and Dolmaire, both first time actors,
literally light up the screen, where their ecstatic combustible energy is
something to savor, as Esther is viewed as royalty, where every male in the
vicinity is attracted to her, so she quickly learns to fend them off and has
become a master in the art of the put-down, showing an instant disdain for
people that get on her nerves, believing life is too short for people to waste
her time, but she has the whole world beckoning her, wanting to be with
her. Initially Paul appears to have
little chance, spending his time traveling back and forth between Roubaix and
Paris, where it turns out absence makes the heart grow fonder. In an era before social media, where now kids
routinely send hundreds of text messages every day, the preferred technique
back in the day was writing letters, pouring out one’s heart and soul in
confessional outpourings of love (which are read directly into the camera),
where every spare moment is dedicated to an idyllic “her,” keeping her foremost
on his mind even as he pursues his Parisian studies and a life as an academic,
where their exchanges are electric, literally flowing with excitement and
energy when they meet, exhibiting all the signs of a sweetness of youth,
becoming passionate lovers before long, where they can’t live without each
other. The beauty of this film is really
the playfulness of Desplechin’s cinematic presentation, the way he mixes it up,
showing plenty of offbeat humor, tenderness, moments of despair, crude
awakenings, and a world where nothing makes sense except each other, but where
their journey together is anything but smooth as she fights to maintain her
fiery independence, often shown facing straight into the camera with a
cigarette in her hand, where she’s literally posing for the audience, becoming
a snapshot in time. On again, off again,
she’s put off by the extent of his absences, and freely acknowledges she sleeps
with other guys, where they go through a series of breakups and
reconciliations, but Paul has a way of charming the pants off her (which
happens literally with another woman in the film), where she loves the way
he’ll poetically describe a work of art, like one of his favorite paintings,
putting her somewhere in the center of its majestic beauty, a sacred,
unreachable perfection, while he sees himself as some lonely figure off to the
side, but perhaps the only thing in the frame alert enough to notice the power
of her staggering presence. It’s a
fascinating free-wheeling style that matches the furious pace of his earlier
film, literally painting a window into their damaged souls where they have such
a special chemistry together that is rare in films today. With a throbbing soundtrack that matches the
elevated emotional reach of the film, there’s something bewitching and
enchanting about it, where Desplechin’s masterful direction breathes life into
an age-old Romeo and Juliet love
story, becoming intensely personal, fiercely sincere, especially a scene late
in the film, with tinges of sadness when looked back upon because it never
lasted, but the thoughtfulness and thorough detail of the remembrances are a
brilliant ode to youth, as illuminating as they are intoxicating.
8.) EMBRACE OF THE
SERPENT (El abrazo de la serpiente) Embrace
of the Serpent (El abrazo de la serpiente) A-
Colombia Venezuela Argentina
(125 mi) 2015 ‘Scope
d: Crio Guerra Official
site
Winner of the CICAE award at Cannes, which promotes art
cinema, this surprisingly haunting period film, shot in black and white, with a
brief expanse into color near the end, is not nearly as inventive or
fantastical as Miguel Gomes’s 2013 Top Ten
List #4 Tabu (2012), though it exists in an entirely different universe,
offering a unique vantage point of those historically connected to Amazon rain
forests and the indigenous population residing there. The film is a road map for a journey into the
past, exposing the brutal effects of colonialism imposed upon an indigenous
population in Colombia, including the aftereffects of centuries of barbaric
atrocities, slave labor, forced religious conversions, an elimination of their
native languages, all highlighting the mammoth differences in cultural
perspective between whites and local natives, as whites have plundered the rain
forests in search of rubber and annihilated all but the last traces of an
indigenous population, where the surviving native tribes no longer trust white
people, having learned from personal experience that scheming whites are the
lowest scourge of the earth. The idea of
profiting off the natural treasures found growing in the rain forest seems
preposterous to the native people, who have for centuries developed a reverence
for the sacred and curative powers of natural plants, such as the prized
yakruna flower with alleged healing powers that whites wish to harvest in order
to extract the purest rubber, where all whites see in the flower are dollar
signs. Even as these explorers hide
their real intentions of what they plan to do with this plant if they find it,
their writings about their expeditions provide the only window into this lost
world. What distinguishes this film is
its ability to frame so much of the narrative around a non-white cultural
perspective, holding a mirror up to Western civilization’s pattern of abuses in
the region, offering a scintillatingly refreshing viewpoint that artistically
evokes a curative solution for the hubris and arrogance that has perpetually
guided outsiders into the region.
Blending fact and fiction, the interconnected narrative
follows a dual track thirty years apart, based upon the diaries of German
ethnologist and explorer Theodor Koch-Grunberg in 1909, played by Jan
Bijvoet from Borgman
(2013), and another expedition that followed in his footsteps by American
biologist and plant enthusiast Richard Evans Schultes in the 1940’s, played
by Brionne Davis from AVENGED (2013), who had read Theo’s book, where each
journey into the Amazon rain forest was in search of an elusive flower with
amazing medicinal properties, where both men come in contact with the same
medicine man or shaman, Karamakate, Niblio Torres in his youth and Antonio
Bolivar as the older man, the last surviving member of his tribe in a region
overrun by colonialists. The blending of
time adds a surreal quality to the film, where the slower pace of life along
the river traversing by canoe through spectacular jungle foliage is already
depicted in a lush, dreamlike atmosphere, beautifully shot by David Gallego,
with an extraordinary sound design by Carlos García, enriched by the vivid
sounds and sights of the flora and fauna, where as many as nine different
languages are spoken along with native songs and ceremonial chants. Wasting little time, the film gets right into
the heart of the story, where a young Karamakate waits on a riverbank with a
painted face in ceremonial attire, spear in hand, wearing only a loin cloth as
a canoe approaches carrying a deathly-ill German scientist and a native
companion Maduca (Yauenkü Migue) dressed in clothing worn by whites. Asking if he would save his friend’s life,
the shaman refuses, claiming it was the white man that destroyed his village
and wiped out his entire tribe, where he’s all that’s left, showing an equal
amount of contempt for both of them, telling them to go look elsewhere. When Theo suggests there are survivors from
his tribe and he knows where to find them, the irritated Karamakate reluctantly
agrees to help, so long as they disturb nothing, while refusing to eat meat or
fish and leaving the jungle intact.
Blowing a substance (likely a mixture of coca leaves) directly into his
nose, Theo soon recovers, readily abiding by a new set of guidelines
established by Karamakate, who must continually inject him with this curative
medicine to avoid a relapse, as only the yakruna flower can provide a permanent
cure.
As they begin their Odysseus-like journey, the film
possesses a near mythical quality as they encounter a series of unfortunate
circumstances, deliberately entering Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, where the making of the film itself recalls the
impossible encounters of Herzog’s FITZCARRALDO (1982), or the madness of
AGUIRRE, THE WRATH OF GOD (1972), continually mixing the future with the past,
where the filmmaker literally alters any concept of time, as it’s all part of
the same “experience,” where Karamakate informs them “Listen to what the river
can tell you. Every tree, every flower
brings wisdom.” For the shaman, this is
also a journey of rediscovery, as his powers have grown rusty from disuse,
identifying as a chullachaqui (an
empty shell of a human being), allowing himself to be a part of the world again
where he once again lives in harmony with all things. He ridicules the useless pile of suitcases
that Theo lugs along at every step, suggesting “they’re just things” weighing
them down, throwing them overboard at one point, while Theo claims he is a man
of science, where he has to provide evidence of where he’s been or no one back
in Germany would believe him, showing him notebooks of drawings he has made, or
specimens he has collected along the way, which includes taking Karamakate’s
photograph standing proudly as the master of his domain. This same photograph is used to guide Richard
back into the same region decades later, as they retrace the same steps traveled
on the earlier journey still in search of the elusive plant. In a way, the narrative structure resembles
Jarmusch’s Dead
Man (1995), where an Indian leads a white man on a protracted journey of
awakening just before the hour of his death, retracing their steps as they
cross between several spiritual realms leading up to the “final crossing.” As we see Theo socializing with a group of
natives in their own language, where there is plenty of singing and dancing, he
demonstrates the advanced power of a compass, which one of the natives takes to
immediately, offering a handmade craft for its possession, which angers Theo,
as it’s one of his most prized navigational tools, suggesting technology will
alter their natural evolution, but Karamakate reminds him that blind ignorance
is not some pure romanticized notion, “You cannot forbid them to learn.
Knowledge belongs to all men.”
While there are many horrors seen along the way, perhaps
the worst are the crimes perpetrated by the rubber industry, as they come
across a grove of bleeding rubber trees, a reflection of the white presence in
the Amazon, where Maduca angrily spills all the cups collecting the white
sticky liquid released from gashes in the trunks of the trees, fuming over the Effects
on indigenous population where the rubber barons viciously rounded up the
local Indians by force, placed them in chains, killed them on the spot or cut
off the arms of those that disobeyed, while ordering them to tap rubber out of
the trees, where on one plantation alone that began with 50,000 Indians, only
8,000 remained after the harvest. In some
areas 90% of the Indian population was wiped out. A distraught one-armed man they encounter is
beside himself in grief at what they’ve done, knowing he will be held
responsible, asking them to kill him right there on the spot, as he will surely
not live to see another day. Further
down river they run into a deranged Spanish priest running a Catholic mission
filled with orphaned native children who lost their parents to the rubber
plantations, all dressed in white robes, where they are forbidden to speak in
their native, or “pagan” language, including ancestral fables and stories, as
any cultural reminders of where they came from is subject to brutal punishment,
where the absurdity of the situation is so dire that the priest prefers to
inflict the wrath of a public whipping even as the Colombian army approaches on
a rampage through the countryside where in all likelihood they will eventually
be slaughtered. Besides a need to
unburden themselves of material possessions, to explore the mystery of
existence through consciousness alone, Karamakate reminds both scientists that
they carry psychological baggage and cannot be cured of their illness because
the white man has forgotten how to dream.
In spite of the sinister undercurrent, there’s a meditative quality to
Guerra’s direction that culminates in a transformative final scene that
transcends into a near-religious mystical experience, where the only way to
heal is by learning how to dream, all emerging from their journeys as different
men, as they are finally allowed to “experience” what they came in search of,
literally exploding out of the subconscious like the final scenes of
Tarkovsky’s ANDREI RUBLEV (1966), becoming a montage of brilliant, swirling
colors, a hallucinogenic, dream-like vision revealing the magnificence of the
cosmos, complete with animal gods and heavenly constellations, where the
universe exists in all its abstract manifestations, pushing the boundaries of
what is real and imagined, offering a poignant closing dedication to those
“peoples whose song we will never know.”
9.) THE ASSASSIN
(Nie Yinniang) The Assassin (Nie Yinniang) A-
Taiwan China Hong Kong
France (107 mi) 2015
d: Hou Hsiao-hsien Official
site [Japan]
Winner of the Best Director at Cannes, shot on 35 mm by
longtime cinematographer Mark Lee Ping Bin, this is undoubtedly one of the most
ravishingly beautiful films ever seen, thought of during the screening as a
cross between Wong Kar-wai’s ASHES OF TIME REDUX (2008, from 1994 version) and
Kurosawa in 3D. From the outset one
can’t help but be impressed by the luxuriousness of the images and the multiple
layers of form that exist like wavy tree branches swaying in the breeze, with
someone seen stirring in the shadows, moving slowly between the various fields
of visions, as rocky crevices seemingly protrude off the screen, where movement
is expressed by changes of focus within the frame of the same shot, continually
altering the depth perception of the viewer, offering an experience like no
other. While this is Hou Hsiao-hsien’s
rendering of a Wuxia
film, slow and hypnotically mesmerizing, thoughtfully accentuating the
historical period detail in a film drenched in a painterly opulence that
supersedes any consideration for action sequences, credit must be given to
costumes and production designer Huang Wen-ying that so illustriously recreates
the meticulous look of the 9th century, including paintings on the set that
were drawn by students from the academy of fine arts in Taipei, while also
featuring the captivatingly percussive music by Lim Giong, as there isn’t a
single frame that doesn’t appear in synch with the director’s artistic
vision. The problem, as there is for
most all martial arts films, is there’s simply not much of a story, and what
little there is feels overshadowed by the luminous dreamlike quality of the
film. His first costume drama since the
hypnotic allure of Flowers
of Shanghai (Hai shang hua) (1998), and his first feature in 8 years since
THE FLIGHT OF THE RED BALLOON (2007), this is an almost equally financed
Taiwan-China production (also a first for this director) costing ten times more
than any of his previous works, adapted from a 9th century short story from the
Tang Dynasty scribe Pei Xing, known as chuanqi,
freely reimagined by the director who has had this film in mind for the past 25
years, initially written in very precise, classical Chinese language,
simplified in the English subtitles for easier comprehension, yet also pared
down again by the director who refuses to reveal too much, eliminating all
extraneous material, leaving behind only a minimalist, barebones outline of a
story.
Set in a time when the Imperial Court and the Weibo
province (the largest and strongest of the many provinces) co-exist in an
uneasy alliance when various military factions are still vying for power and
control in China, the film is named after the lead character, Nie Yinniang, Shu
Qi from THREE TMES (2005), exiled by her family at the age of ten where she was
raised by Jiaxin (Sheu Fang-yi), a princess turned Taoist nun, a near
mythological creature that trains her to become a lethal assassin charged with
the task of targeting a tyranny of governors that avoid the authority of the
Emperor in the Imperial Court. In the
opening prologue, filmed in black and white, condensed into a boxed 1:37 aspect
ratio, we see Yinniang (which means Hidden Woman) dressed entirely in black,
waiting patiently lurking in the shadows before springing into action,
literally flying across the screen, striking a lethal blow, slitting the throat
of a man on horseback, all happening in the blink of an eye, seemingly faster
than the eye can see. When it becomes
apparent what’s happened, the stunned guards react angrily, but all we see are
flashes of swords chasing through the foliage of a dense forest that fades into
darkness. Moving on to the house of her
next prey, she is once again a near invisible presence, but decides not to
strike her intended victim, preferring not to kill him in front of his young
son seen innocently chasing after a butterfly.
This sentiment clearly angers her teacher, believing the art of killing
is coldblooded efficiency, with all emotions held in check. As a test of her resolve, Jiaxin sends her on
a mission to murder the governor of Weibo, the place where Yinniang was
born. Upon returning to the familiar
grounds of her family home after the passage of who knows how many years, a
place she no longer has any connection to, the frame expands to widescreen
along with bursts of color, as the opening title greets the audience set
against the crimson colors of a stunning landscape shot at sunset. What follows is a stream of confusion, as Hou
introduces a flurry of new characters each with differing motives, including a
new palace aflutter with rumors and political turmoil in an expanding interior
architectural design featuring stunning ornamental decors, blending the lavish
elegance and color of the silk robes illuminated by candlelight with the
curtains blowing in the breeze. Once
again, the camera pans around the corners of existing layers that exist within
the frame of each composition, where Yinniang lurks in hidden places only the
audience sees.
Chang Chen, previously paired with Shu Qi in THREE TIMES
(2005), having evolved from the young 14-year old nonprofessional lead in
Edward Yang’s masterwork A BRIGHTER SUMMER DAY (1991), plays the targeted governor
Lord Tian Ji’an, the most powerful leader in the Weibo province, who just
happens to be Yinniang’s cousin, where once they were young lovers slated to be
married, but we learn his mother betrayed her, so she was sent away instead,
and a political marriage was arranged between two powerful families in order to
help maintain the peace between Weibo and the Imperial Court. One of the more poignant aspects of the film
is revealed when Lord Tian explains the significance of two matching jade
pieces that he and Yinniang were given as children. All of this adds an element of intrigue
surrounding her mission, as she’s ordered to kill a man she once loved. In the flurry of activity inside the palace,
Lord Tian has problems of his own, where the supposed peace appears to be
crumbling, angrily banishing a young lord for speaking unwisely, sending
soldiers after him to bury him alive, leading to a confrontation with Yinniang
in a gorgeously realized ambush in the birch trees, while his wife Lady Tian
(Zhou Yun) is growing more increasingly hostile towards his favorite concubine,
Huji (Hsieh Hsin-ying), who is concealing her pregnancy. Making matters worse, Lord Tian is regularly
approached by a seemingly dark presence that appears out of the shadows, always
arriving unexpectedly, none more amusing than when Yinniang reveals herself to
the Lord by falling from the roof and coming face-to-face to announce Huji’s
pregnancy, then disappearing just as quickly into the night. One of the more bizarre scenes features Yinniang
having to dual a literal mirror image of herself, another female adversary in a
gold mask, which suggests she’s from a wealthy house, in contrast to the black
outfit worn by Yinniang. While this
scene is never explained and is more of a puzzle than anything else, with some
suggesting she’s fighting her own inner demons, the lady in the gold mask is
none other than Lady Tian, apparently unhappy with the way Yinniang has
returned to meddle in her husband’s affairs, also showing she’s willing to fight
any perceived threat to her own family’s position in Weibo, playing a more
complex, Lady Macbeth role (even more devious later), which gives Yinniang
reason to pause. Of interest, the lady
in the gold mask and Lady Tian were two different characters in the original
script, but were merged into one by the final shooting.
One of the more sinister characters behind the scenes is a
bald wizard with huge eyebrows and an overflowing beard, viewed as a martial
arts master with magic powers (perhaps the teacher of Lady Tian), who makes
paper dolls carrying demonic spells. In
the one supernatural sequence of the film, the doll produces a poisonous fog
that seems to disintegrate the unsuspecting Huji, only to be thwarted by the
intervention of Yinniang who discovers the murderous plot. When the soldiers find the old wizard, they
shoot him with a volley of arrows. In
Hou’s original conception, however, the old man magically escapes by
disappearing in front of the soldiers, leaving the arrows to find only his clothes
that remain without a human body. But
Hou never found a way to make this look convincing, so the old man
perished. Certainly one of the most
gorgeous scenes is a rhapsodic ceremonial sequence that is literally drenched
in the visual extravagance of Oriental fantasies, which is an astonishing
physical reconstruction of 9th century Weibo.
Populating the landscape with remarkably dense forests from Inner
Mongolia and China’s Hubei province, the martial arts sequences are themselves
conceived as short bursts of energy, viewed as a perfect economy of the spirit,
practicing humility, while always maintaining harmonious balance according to
the teachings of the I Ching. According
to interviews, Hou has indicated viewers may need to see this film as many as
three times in order to fully understand the intricacies involved, first to get
a rough idea of the artistic presentation, second to understand the story
buried so deeply within the rich textures of the film, and third to fully
appreciate just how extraordinary this film is.
It does pose a Shakespearean dilemma posed in Hamlet, but in this film, which audaciously features an assassin as
the protagonist, it asks the question:
to kill or not to kill? Spending
most of the movie waiting and ponderously observing, the character could serve
as an alter ego or stand-in for the filmmaker himself, as Yinniang is torn
between the teachings of her Taoist master to carry out her assignment, while also having
to contend with her own family, as her father is an advisor to Lord Tian, to
whom she may still have an unspoken connection of her own, becoming something
of a prolonged battle of wills. While
it’s extremely unusual for a lead character to only have about nine speaking
lines, her opaque, gravely toned down performance matches the severity of her
mission, which allows the audience to interpret what she’s experiencing while
continuously looming behind the scenes.
While she’s curiously indecisive, playing to the strength of her mental
resolve to evaluate in its entirety just how things are playing out in the
Weibo palace before she acts, only intervening from time to time, as she allows
the natural order of things to unfold while assailing the unpredictable
fluctuations of history and time. When
all is said and done, she emerges as the master of her own destiny, much like
the director who has made yet another film unlike anyone else, redefining the
well-traveled genre as an art form that can literally transport an audience
back into another mystical time and place in breathtaking fashion.
10.) ABOUT ELLY (Darbareye Elly) About
Elly (Darbareye Elly) A-
Iran France (119 mi)
2009 d: Asghar Farhadi
Asghar Farhadi is one of the few major Iranian directors
that still makes films in Iran, a nation where literally dozens of filmmakers
have been arrested and released under the Ahmadinejad regime, as Jafar Panahi
and Mohammad Rasoulof, along with filmmaker and actress Mahnaz Mohammadi,
remain imprisoned for political differences, their passports revoked, banned
from making future movies, while legendary Iranian
New Wave directors Abbas Kiarostami and Mohsen Makhmalbaf work in
exile. It’s a significant paradox that
Farhadi has been free to serve on juries for major international film
festivals, and even win major prizes himself, including his highly acclaimed A
Separation (Jodaeiye Nader az Simin) (2011), which won the Academy Award
for Best Foreign Film (also nominated for Best Original Screenplay), becoming
the highest grossing Iranian film ever made (listed as #40 foreign language
movie of all-time, Foreign
Language Movies at the Box Office - Box Office Mojo) and the first Iranian
to win an Academy Award in any competitive category, while his compatriots
languish in prison. We are reminded that
in September 2010 during the making of A
Separation (Jodaeiye Nader az Simin), which due to past film successes was
made without any governmental support, Farhadi was banned from making the film
by the Iranian Ministry of Culture, as during earlier acceptance speeches at
award ceremonies, he expressed support for Mohsen Makhmalbaf, an exiled Iranian
filmmaker living at the time in Afghanistan, and imprisoned political filmmaker
Jafar Panahi, both of whom are linked to the Iranian Green Movement that questioned the
validity of the 2009 Iranian Presidential election, demanding the removal of
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad from office.
The ban was lifted a month later after Farhadi apologized for his
remarks and claimed to be inaccurately perceived. While certainly considered one of the most
important directors of the 90’s, the Iranian government has long refused to
permit the screening of any Kiarostami film for well over a decade, causing him
to remark, “The government has decided not to show any of my films for the past
10 years... I think they don’t understand my films and so prevent them being shown
just in case there is a message they don’t want to get out. They tend to support films that are
stylistically very different from mine – melodramas” ("Abbas
Kiarostami – Not A Martyr", Stuart Jeffries
from The Guardian, April 26, 2005),
which begs the question, why is Farhadi still visibly working in Iran while
others have disappeared or been silenced?
The
Past (Le Passé) (2013) was even partially financed by Iran. Perhaps it’s a matter of economics, as his
films continue to make money, seemingly at odds with arthouse filmmakers who
have other priorities. That being said,
ABOUT ELLY is only belatedly having an international release six years after it
premiered to considerable acclaim at the Berlin Festival in 2009 where Farhadi
won a Silver Bear for Best Director, winning dozens of other awards as well,
but it was mysteriously shelved afterwards, as an earlier distributor that
acquired the film apparently went out of business. It’s curious that this film’s public
introduction comes “after” his two earlier films drew such heavy international
praise, where one of them surprisingly became the most successful film in
Iranian film history.
When seen in this context, how ironic that the film with
the least amount of accompanying accolades is arguably this director’s best
film. This may be the closest Farhadi
has come to emulating Jafar Panahi, where Western elements creep into an
Iranian film, whose CRIMSON GOLD (2003) mixes the stylization of Iranian social
realism with a European art film, actually paying tribute to Fellini’s NIGHTS
OF CABIRIA (1957). In similar fashion,
ABOUT ELLY borrows liberally from Antonioni’s L’AVVENTURA (1960), a film where
Italian neo-realism comes face to face with contemporary modern society, a
brooding interior film that expresses extreme emotional alienation through slow
pacing, narrative ambiguity, and extraordinary visual stylization. In each, a large degree of the film’s success
can be attributed to the brilliance of the character development, where
multiple figures literally come to life onscreen, becoming familiar to us all
by the end of the picture. While
Antonioni creates spaces between characters through silences or long wordless
sequences, Farhadi takes a more collective approach, creating a group dynamic
that is reflective of a casual self-interest mindset when one member of a group
of friends goes mysteriously missing during a weekend trip to the Caspian
Sea. Intent on examining the fractured
and hypocritical culture of the middle-class, Farhadi conceals their underlying
motives throughout most of the film before allowing them to erupt in emotional
fireworks during an explosive finale. An
essay-like comment on contemporary times, ABOUT ELLY also accentuates the
extreme degree of alienation from rapidly changing cultural norms, exposing
utter indifference to the social injustice of women, whose powerlessness leaves
them even further isolated from the mainstream, their lives dominated and
completely controlled by the arrogance and paternalistic whims of selfishly
deluded men, revealing just how completely out of touch they are with their
wives and female counterparts who are all but invisible to them. The stark divide is a breathtaking surprise,
a social critique beautifully revealed through unraveling layers of seemingly
innocuous conversations that become dramatically intensified, ultimately a
distinctively evolving passion play that reaches heights of hysteria,
dramatically expressed with a great deal of clarity, though this only becomes
evident by the end. Farhadi’s true
strength is his writing, and while there are nearly a dozen featured
characters, the naturalism of their performances really serves the overall
outcome. Much like a stage play, though
expressed with utter simplicity, the speed and rhythm of the conversational
interplay between characters must reflect the overall mood changes of a very
complicated social dynamic, where it’s essential they be viewed as believable
and authentic. The success of this film
is that all the movable parts contribute to the whole, where what’s lurking
under the surface, seemingly benign and of little consequence, has a powerful
impact that in the end provides a stunning societal exposé.
The film begins innocently enough, as a group of
middle-class friends, old classmates from the university, set out for a
relaxing weekend on the shores of the Caspian Sea, three married couples and
their young children, including Sepideh, Golshifteh Farahani from My
Sweet Pepper Land (2013), who organized the trip, who brings along Elly
(Taraneh Alidoosti), her daughter’s kindergarten teacher, while also inviting a
male friend Ahmad (Shahab Hosseini), who recently separated from his wife and
is visiting from Germany. While the
boisterous mood remains upbeat, with plenty of music and chatter, the overriding
feeling is one of exuberance, expressing the joy of being young and happy, shot
in a cinéma vérité style, where the audience is exposed to wave after wave of
overlapping conversations. Not to be
deterred, despite being full for the holidays, the group is offered a seaside
villa with broken windows and no beds that hasn’t been fixed up yet, but the
charm of the nearby sea is inviting.
Playing charades, singing songs, or spontaneously breaking out into
dance, it’s a celebratory atmosphere with plenty of food brought in for the
occasion. While Elly is admittedly shy
and reluctantly hesitant, there’s a bit of matchmaking going on behind the
scenes, which is all in good fun, where they’re playfully introduced as young
newlyweds to the rental owners to avoid any hint of scandal. Nonetheless, with things seemingly going
well, Elly is admittedly uncomfortable and seeks to leave early, spoiling the
fun for Sepideh who encourages her to stay.
While the women are out buying food and the men are having a strenuous
volleyball match on the beach, Elly is watching the kids, seen in a state of
ecstasy while flying a kite, but then Sepideh’s daughter frantically cries out
for help as one of the other children has gone out too far and is being carried
out to sea, creating an panic-stricken moment of hysteria where all the adults
run and jump into the water without a clue where he is. Fortunately, after a delirious search, the
child is safely rescued, but then they notice Elly has disappeared, where no
one knows what happened to her. Unsure
whether she drowned or returned home on her own, suddenly the film takes on a
more sinister mood, where they have to get their stories straight before
calling the police, as they don’t wish to be implicated. Self-preservation overrides any sense of
honor in the face of tragedy, as each begins looking out for themselves,
pointing their fingers at others, trying any way they can to escape blame. It’s a sad and pathetic situation when they
literally turn on one another, like sharks with blood in the water, with
husbands blaming wives, claiming they should have been watching the kids, not
some stranger whose last name they don’t even know, fearing how this might ruin
their reputations and good social standing.
A carefree vacation of best friends turns into a desperate moment of
panic, fear, and outright suspicion. In
no time it grows even more complicated, like a house of cards imploding on
itself, where a protracted series of lies meant to spare someone emotional
grief only escalates, reaching a level of emotional hysteria previously unseen
in Iranian films. Relying heavily on
suspense, Farhadi unspools this extraordinary drama in sophisticated fashion,
first creating the unsettled, murky waters of suspicion and distrust, then
critiquing the morality of patronizing, overzealous social conventions while
also exploring the male/female dynamic in modern Iran. It’s a masterful effort that moves from the
sunny comforts of Èric Rohmer territory to the dark psychological realms of
Hitchcockian suspense.
Honorable
Mention
HEART OF A DOG Heart of
a Dog A-
USA (75
mi) 2015 d: Laurie Anderson
I walk
accompanied by ghosts.
I walk accompanied by ghosts.
My father with his diamond eyes
His voice life size.
He says follow me. Follow me.
And I come sliding where I've been hiding
Out of the heart of a child.
Meet me by the lake. Meet me by the lake.
I'll be there. I'll be there.
If only I had the time. To tell you how I climbed
Out of the darkness. Out of my mind.
And I come sliding where I've been hiding
Out of the heart of a child.
Sunrise comes across the mountains.
Sunrise comes across the day.
Sunsets sit across the lakeside.
Sunsets across the Pyrenees.
Out of the heart of a child.
Out of the heart of a child.
Out of the heart of a child.
Meet me by the lake. Meet me by the lake.
I walk accompanied by ghosts.
The Lake, by
Laurie Anderson, The Lake - YouTube (5:39), 2010
Laurie Anderson covers a lot of territory in this personal
meditation on life and death, initially commissioned by Swiss Arte TV as a
“philosophy of life” project, beautifully exploring the process of grief through
intimate experiences that she shares.
And while initially conceived as a short film eulogy in memory of her
beloved rat terrier dog Lolabelle, who died in 2011, this is essentially a
poetic visual essay expanded to include the death of her mother, fellow artist
Gordon Matta-Clark, and husband Lou Reed who also died while she was making the
film, who is never mentioned, and only seen in a fleeting shot near the end,
where their constant presence has a way of turning this into a story inhabited
by ghosts that provides continuous illumination into our existing world, citing
David Foster Wallace’s The Pale King
that suggests “Every love story is a ghost story,” becoming a
feature-length film delivered several years late and at four times the length
that it was originally supposed to be.
What’s distinctive about this effort is the often inventive and amusing
way Anderson chooses to do this, where it is as much about the art of
storytelling and the joy of living.
Unlike other attempts on similar themes, like Gaspar Noé’s ENTER THE
VOID (2009), this material isn’t bogged down by conventions or form, but
remains elevated throughout by an artist’s often euphoric sensibility, where
the director conjures up the spirit of film essayist Chris Marker or Agnès
Varda with her own Midwestern sounding narration that quite honestly recalls
the voice of Gena Rowlands, who was born in Madison,
Wisconsin. (Interestingly, Rowlands is
her mother’s maiden name.) An honest,
autobiographical appraisal of her own life, one of the guiding inspirations of
the film is attributed to a quote from Søren
Kierkegaard, “Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be
lived forwards.”
While only 75-minutes long, it’s an extremely dense and
impactive experience filled with childhood memories, video diaries, reflections
on the post 9/11 surveillance culture, and reincarnation, sprinkled throughout
by quotes from Anderson’s personal Zen Buddhist teacher Mingyur Rinpoche and The Tibetan Book of the Dead, along with
tributes to various artists who have inspired her. Anderson grew up in Glen Ellyn, Illinois,
attending Glenbard West High School, majoring in art history at Barnard College
while earning her master’s in sculpture from Columbia University, becoming a
composer and musician, mostly playing violin and keyboards, and once worked as
an art critic for Artforum magazine
(also McDonald’s and on an Amish farm) before embarking on a career in the 60’s
as an avant-garde performance artist, quickly finding her place in the
experimental art scene of SoHo in the 1970’s, becoming a pioneer in electronic
music. Composing the musical soundtracks
to Jonathan Demme’s SOMETHING WILD (1986) and Spalding Gray films SWIMMING TO
CAMBODIA (1987) and MONSTER IN A BOX (1992), while also adding additional music
to BEFORE NIGHT FALLS (2000), Anderson has only directed one other
feature-length movie, HOME OF THE BRAVE (1986), a filmed performance of one of
her musical tours. While her
audio/visual work has appeared in major museums in America and Europe, where
she is considered a groundbreaking leader in the use of technology in the arts,
she has released a half dozen albums and also written six books. In 2002, in something of an oddity, she was
announced as NASA’s first artist in residence, out of which developed a solo
performance entitled “The End of the Moon,” Laurie Anderson - The end of
the moon ... - YouTube (8:31), that toured internationally through 2006,
which suggests Anderson’s art reaches for the mysteries of the cosmos.
Except for a trip to California, all of this film was shot within a few
blocks of Anderson’s artist and musician’s studio in southern SoHo on the far
western reaches of Canal Street overlooking the Hudson River in Lower
Manhattan, bleak building facades and empty streets as seen through
surveillance footage after the 9/11 attack, while today there are Trump Tower
skyscrapers on each side of her low-lying building with plenty of trees
nearby. The film opens with a dream
about giving birth to a dog, where the bond between them is profoundly
intimate, displaying an almost maternalistic attachment, beautifully expressed
by Anderson’s own monochrome ink drawings, followed shortly thereafter by the
death of her mother, where she remembers in great detail her last words, as she
was literally saying goodbye to animals that she imagined seeing on the
ceiling, which may as well have been her eight children huddled by the side of
her hospital bed. According to Anderson,
her mother, on some level, was trying to give a speech, like going up to a
microphone and saying “Thank you, all of you, thanks for coming.” One of the most extraordinary revelations is
the acknowledgment how difficult this was for Anderson, as she never loved her
mother, so she wasn’t sure what to say in the final moments. But she didn’t have to worry about it, as her
mother spoke for everyone in the room, literally creating a new language to fit
the occasion. Similarly, in order to
prepare her for this moment, her Buddhist teacher Rinpoche suggested she try to
think of a moment when she was truly loved by her mother, and isolate that
moment, becoming a memory frozen in time that will live forever.
Lolabelle is the featured character, returned to throughout
the film, as Anderson took her everywhere, and can be seen in a 2003 Charlie
Rose interview with the artist and her husband, Laurie Anderson & Lou
Reed Interviewed by Charlie Rose ... Pt. 1 YouTube (13:40). Leading a remarkable life, recounting how her
pet mastered the ability to feel empathy, a unique quality that many humans
lack, unfortunately, while Anderson has also taught her various skills, like
how to finger-paint with her paws, make sculptures with the help of a trainer,
or play the electric piano. Not only
could she play piano on cue in front of a camera, but Anderson brought her to
various public fundraisers where she amazingly performed in front of large
audiences, developing a kind of free-form, Thelonious Monk style of percussive
riffs. When her pet started going blind
not long before her death, she decided to move her to a more comfortable
environment, Green Gulch | San Francisco Zen Center,
a Buddhist retreat located near Muir Beach hugging the shoreline 16 miles north
of San Francisco, where it was Anderson’s idea to test Lolabelle’s ability to
comprehend as many as 50 vocabulary words.
While walking her along the beach every day, often extended to all day
events, Anderson describes herself as a “sky-worshipper,” where looking to the
vastness of the sky tends to have a calming influence, but on this occasion she
discovered a circling hawk that dive-bombed her dog, turning away at the last
minute when it apparently realized Lolabelle was not a rabbit. This brought to mind the similar idea of
airborne predators that struck on 9/11, a thought that is never far from the
mind of such a quintessentially New York artist, recalling the presence of so
many armed troops suddenly stationed just outside her home throughout Lower
Manhattan, where Lolabelle comes from the same breed of dogs that Homeland
Security trains.
One of the more unique sections is Anderson’s rendering of
the Bardo, a transitionary state between death and rebirth, according to The Tibetan Book of the Dead, shown in
expressionist paintings, near abstract imagery, and Anderson’s own remarkable
score. This epitomizes what Anderson is
trying to do, expressing her own ruminations on the afterlife, describing the
fragility of every moment, inviting the viewers into an imaginative use of
variously textured visual effects, employing animation, 8mm home movie clips,
distorted or altered imagery, text on the screen, newly shot footage, and such
an inventive use of music, like the Kronos Quartet, Kronos Quartet — Flow (Laurie
Anderson) [LIVE] - YouTube (3:18), all given shape by the weight of her own
personal narration, developing such a stimulating and fluid work, as if
conjured up from the depths of her own consciousness. “You should try to practice how to feel sad
without actually being sad,” suggests her teacher Rinpoche as we see snow fall
gently in the woods and ice-skaters moving in slow motion on a frozen lake, as
Anderson remembers her days skating on that lake in Glen Ellyn, recalling a
haunting childhood memory, shown in faded and cracked photographs, when she was
pushing two younger identical twin brothers in a stroller across the ice when
suddenly the weight of the stroller fell through a cracked opening, where both
children were instantly underwater. All
she could think about was the trouble she’d be in with her mother if she lost
her brothers, so she dove into the frozen water, searching through the muck to
retrieve one, placing him safely on the ice before diving after the other
brother as well, running home with both of them tucked under each arm, where
her mother’s response was “I didn’t know you were such an exceptional
diver.” The death of her mother awoke
these strange and conflicted feelings of fear, a sense of urgency, and regret,
but also that one moment when she was truly loved by her mother. It’s an amazing incident, remarkably
portrayed, and beautifully incorporated into an impressionistic film collage
that delves into the depths of the human spirit. With a flicker of his lost soul, Lou Reed’s
“Turning Time Around” Lou
Reed - Turning time around (2000) - YouTube (5:48) plays fittingly over the
end credits.
METALHEAD (Málmhaus)
Metalhead
(Málmhaus) A-
Iceland
(97 mi) 2013 ‘Scope
d: Ragnar Bragason Official
Facebook
Flesh and
blood
into the ground returned
Destroyer
born
Everything
will burn
Scorched
earth
Swallows
the best of us
Scorched
earth
annihilates the rest of us
Agony in
pained defeat
A toast
of sand so dark and sweet
As far as
the eye can reach
Snow
engulfs the fields
As far as
the eye can reach
The snow
will never yield
Pétur
Ben - Svarthamar - YouTube (4:33)
A small gem of a film from Iceland, one that resonates on
far deeper levels than one might presume, and raising eyebrows in the
process. While the title and movie
poster suggest some kind of homage to a 70’s music group like Kiss,
the film itself moves in a completely different direction, becoming a portrait
of youthful alienation in an isolated rural setting of a smalltown family
farm. Opening with a tragic farming
accident, 12-year old Hera witnesses the startling death of her older brother
Baldur, leaving behind an inexplicable void that haunts every frame of the rest
of the picture. But rather than dwell on
typical stages of grief and loss, this well-written film uses deadpan humor to
great effect, becoming an absurdist road movie about a rebellious teenager Hera
(Thorbjὃrg Helga Thorgilsdόttir) who always dreams of leaving home
and heading for the city, spending the better part of her life talking about
it, but somehow never goes through with it, despite multiple attempts, where
one of the lingering images of the film is seeing her sitting alone at a bus
stop, a lone outpost in the vast emptiness of the region, often remaining there
even after the bus passes, remaining stuck in the claustrophobic confines of a
conservative smalltown family and community that embraces her, even as she
utterly rejects them. In a wordless
sequence that jumps forward a few years, Hera burns all her old clothes and
instead grabs a few metal T-shirts like Slayer and Megadeth from Baldur’s room,
that remains exactly as it was throughout, like a shrine to his existence. Leaving her own identity behind, she instead
immerses herself in Baldur’s black leather jacket and his electric guitar,
playing his favorite metal music at disturbingly high volumes, expressing her
thoughts on the matter, “They say time heals all wounds. That’s utter bullshit.” Reverberating with defiance and
dissatisfaction, the film is an expression of her refusal to conform, a
headstrong character continually seen butting heads with her parents and
neighbors, who are often seen bringing her home, passed out in a state of
intoxication, usually with one of their tractors missing which she appropriated
for one of her midnight joy rides. As
much a comment on the uniqueness of the region as her own state of mind, the
secondary characters are all equally well sketched out, especially her own
parents, the quietly stoic and mild-mannered milk farmer Karl (Ingvar Eggert
Sigurðsson) and his devoted wife Droplaug (Halldóra Geirharðsdóttir), both of
whom suffer in silence with a kind of muted dysfunction.
Seemingly on the road to nowhere, Hera remains emotionally
trapped and conflicted, caught between the life that took her brother and her
own inability to strike out on her own for fear of losing whatever connection
still exists between them. But more than
any character, the true subject and most outstanding feature of the film is
Iceland itself, beautifully shot by August Jakobsson, particularly wide-angled
shots that extend to distant horizons, revealing a mountainous, snow-filled
landscape that couldn’t express more natural beauty. Interesting, then, that much of this was
achieved through special effects, as seen here, Metalhead Visual Effects YouTube
(3:21). As improbable as it may seem to
many, filling the endless expanse with Judas Priest and Dio blasting away from
her tape deck, while composing a raw version of her own song, featuring
blood-curdling screams to the startled cows while amped up at full blast in the
barn for a truly primitive sounding recording, Svarthamar Demo OST - YouTube
(5:42), it works better than expected, as it’s a tribute to the glory days of
metal bands like Riot, Teaze, Savatage, Lizzy Borden, Judas Priest, and
Megadeth, whose anguish perfectly expresses Hera’s own silent rage. In a Scandinavian nod to Ingmar Bergman, it
seems every scene shot in the cold stillness of frozen farmlands is beautifully
juxtaposed against the inner grief tormenting Hera and her family. Winner of eight Icelandic Film Awards
(nominated for 17 awards), including Best Actress, Best Supporting Actor and
Actress, Best Editing, and Original Score, the film was at least partially inspired
by the Norwegian black metal church
burnings in the 1990’s, where a wave of arson attacks against Christian
churches resulted in at least 50 church burnings by 1996, nearly all attributed
to followers of black metal who bitterly opposed Christianity and organized
religion as a whole. Without delving
into any historical reference, the film incorporates this sentiment into the
much simpler times of a country town in Iceland in the late 80’s and early
1990’s, starting quite slowly, but eventually picking up the pace, allowing the
viewers to identify with the characters.
Thorgilsdόttir as Hera is especially outstanding, particularly the
way she earns the audience’s sympathies despite behaving despicably throughout,
regularly playing mean-spirited juvenile pranks, continually ostracizing her
parents, making their lives a living hell, where we feel her pain and
don’t-give-a-fuck ambivalence while relying upon the friendship and kind
support of her somewhat devoted childhood best friend Knutur (Hannes Oli
Agustsson), a fellow metal aficionado, though in utter exasperation he finally
confesses near the end that he has always hated Dio.
With characters damaged by the remoteness of their
surroundings, Hera is at odds with the people and the place where they live,
where everything feels too ordinary and small for her. While essentially a film of Hera’s personal
struggles, the film also adds insightful details to her parent’s issues with
intimacy, where their son’s death has become an unspoken wedge between them,
eventually finding a way to turn the page, which may come as something of a
surprise considering their daughter’s continued recalcitrance. They continually remain a part of the town
through regular church visits and community social functions, where the
presence of a new young priest, Janus (Sveinn Ólafur Gunnarson), acts to help
facilitate this change. For Hera,
however, she feels betrayed, especially after he opens up to her and
acknowledges his own metal past, suggesting “God can also be found in the
dark,” displaying a particular affection for Iron Maiden, Venom, and Celtic
Frost. She proceeds to see him
differently, however, misunderstanding his helpfulness for something more
personal, precipitating a full-scale rage against God that has deep-seeded
ramifications, including a church burning.
Alone against the world, carrying the burden of her brother’s soul along
with her, she goes on an existential quest for meaning, a surprising odyssey
into the mystifying elements of ice and snow that takes on surreal
implications, where she seems to hit a wall of resistance, realizing she can
simply go no further, as if to surmise rebellion isn’t enough. In an awkward and uncomfortable moment, she
does the unthinkable, failing to move on to the city, as everyone suspects, as
this would be the opportune time, instead retreating back home to the hushed
stares of everyone. This is a
particularly telling moment, as she is who she is, troubled and defiantly
aggressive, a problem child that belongs to the entire community at large,
where no one knows what to do with her, especially her family, though there is
an unspoken feeling of forgiveness and reconciliation. What does transpire is completely unexpected,
where out of the blue some adoring Norwegian metalheads arrive on her family’s
doorstep after hearing a tape of her music, something they describe as
“wickedly evil,” but meant in the best possible light. Their genuine interest revives her own
sagging spirit, helping to rebuild a community that Hera herself has broken,
and in what is perhaps the scene of the film joins Hera in playing a concert
before the entire town, where the faces of all the musicians are painted except
Hera, who stands before everyone in a confessional moment of rage, with
piercing screams and cries of agony, before toning it down into Björk-like poetry,
malmhaus
scene YouTube (4:16), a dark revelatory moment where mood says it all, that
brilliantly brings together all the feelings of pain, anguish and
insurmountable loss, where music becomes an outlet for healing. For all the gloominess and sad melancholy
that pervades throughout this picture, like an incessant stormcloud hanging
overhead, there’s also an equal amount of gentle wit and wry humor, and while
plunging into the inexplicable depths of how people react when dealing with
grief and tragic loss, it’s a unique, beautifully told coming-of-age story that
provides a personalized, firsthand glimpse into rebellious and ostracized
youth.
RED ARMY Red Army A-
USA
Russia (85 mi) 2014
d: Gabe Polsky Official
site
Hockey
players are not cowards!
This is about as much fun as you can have in the
documentary format, where it has the feel of the madly inspired Guy Maddin on a
mission, whose obsession with hockey, having been born and raised in Winnipeg,
is nothing less than an ecstatic lifelong passion. What’s perhaps most surprising is the degree
of poignancy registered by a sports story.
The brilliance of the young director is not only the accumulation of
such amazing archival material, but framing the subject matter as the
examination of a historical event as seen through the eyes of a sports figure,
where the transformation of an entire nation was happening simultaneous to
events happening in his own life, creating an extraordinary look at how history
can effect us all. Perhaps what’s most
unique is the degree of access into a period of Soviet history that is
otherwise secretive and not easily revealed, where the filmmaker’s background,
born and raised in the United States by Soviet immigrants might help explain
the filmmaker’s inquisitive drive to uncover the mysteries of his own past,
where his curiosity was bent on discovering how and why this Soviet hockey team
of the 70’s and 80’s was so good. Most
are familiar with the Miracle on Ice, when a group of amateur and
collegiate kids from America, barely together for a few months, played the
hockey game of their lives and won the gold medal at Lake Placid in the 1980
Olympic Games, beating one of the greatest Soviet hockey teams of all time 4-3,
gold medal winners in six of the previous seven Olympics, an event so
improbable that Sports Illustrated
called it the Top Sports Moment of the 20th Century. Few, however, have taken an insightful look
at just how good that Soviet team was that dominated the sport of hockey during
the Cold War,
where successful sports teams and players, much like the Space Race,
were used as propaganda tools to demonstrate supposed ideological
superiority. Traditionally the Soviets
didn’t even have a hockey team, as historically they played Bandy, an outdoor
winter game that resembles field hockey on ice.
Since that game was never recognized at the Olympics (hockey was
introduced in 1920), after World War II, the Red Army
assigned Anatoli Tarasov to found a Moscow hockey club at
the army sport’s club, CSKA Moscow, which represented the Red Army, while he
served as the original coach of the Soviet national team for thirty
years beginning in 1946, becoming the “father of Russian hockey,” developing a
passion for the game, equally influenced by the mental dominance of chess
masters and the athletic grace of ballet, where the Soviet style of hockey has
an emphasis on skating skills, offense and passing, an amazingly creative and
improvisational style where they move fluidly on the ice, working collectively
as a team, turning the game into an art form.
While Tarasov was the dynamic builder of the team which
started to have some success in the 50’s, winning their first World
Championship in 1954 and first Olympic gold in 1956, he was beloved by his
players, seen as a paternal father figure, as he embraced each of them as young
men full of potential, “You’ll become great hockey players…and great men,”
where his job was to unleash that potential with inspired play on the ice. One
of his young protégé’s, Vyacheslav “Slava” Fetisov, was only 12-years old when
he was chosen for the Dynamo youth hockey team, the oldest sports and physical
training society of the
Interweaving plenty of archival footage from the 70’s and
80’s along with amusing and insightful contemporary interviews, the Soviets
were extremely successful in the sport, winning gold in 7 out of 9 Olympic
Games (Olympic record 62–6–2), winning the World Championships 19 times, where
the players were honored with flowers and medal ceremonies each time they
returned home to Moscow and treated like national heroes. Even though they eventually lost the series,
the Soviets surprised the world in the 1972 Summit Series, finally going face-to-face
with the best NHL Canadian players and initially making it look easy, as the
Canadian goalies had never seen the kind of choreographed movement on the ice
before, where the puck could come from all directions. To slow them down, the Canadians began
engaging in a more physical style of North American play, resulting in disputes
over officiating, roughhouse tactics and finally dirty play, where Philadelphia
Flyer center Bobby Clarke deliberately injured the star Soviet
forward, Valeri Kharlamov, intentionally slashing his
skates, fracturing a bone in his ankle, where the Soviets were winning the
series 3–1–1 when the injury occurred, figuring prominently in the Canadians
winning the last 3 games. Kharlamov was
the most popular Soviet player at the time and his injury in front of a
Despite the honors, there was trouble brewing behind the
scenes, where in the late 70’s Tarasov was suddenly
replaced by a more dictatorial style of coach beholden to the KGB, Viktor Tikhonov, as the
Soviet leadership feared defections, so they needed him to keep a close eye on
all the players. Housed in a prisonlike barracks 11 months out of the
year, Tikhonov trained them relentlessly, refusing to let one player leave even
for the impending death of his father, where according to Fetisov, the players
won despite their coach, as they unanimously hated his approach, calling him an
accountant due to the fastidious notes he was always taking, believing he
suffocated their creative style and instead instituted a strict regimen and the
threat of discipline, instilling fear instead of any love for the game. Fetisov holds Tikhonov responsible for the
Soviet loss to the Americans in the Miracle
on Ice, claiming he favored the Moscow Dynamo players, who represented the KGB over the more skilled
Russian
Five CSKA Moscow players who represented the Red Army, which explains why
he pulled the Soviet’s greatest goalie, Vladislav
Tretiak, after the first period, pulling him for Moscow Dynamo goalie
Vladimir Myshkin, suggesting it was the KGB players that allowed
three of the four American goals. But
rather than being sent to some Siberian gulag after the loss, as people in the
West might think, Tikhonov was actually honored and rewarded. One of the curious side effects of the
international exposure of the Soviet skill players was the interest by the NHL,
as they wanted these players in the North American league, tempting them with
big money contracts, but the Russian government wouldn’t let them go, though
they initially tempted Fetisov with a contract similar to basketball player Yao
Ming from Communist China, where they earn a huge million dollar contract, but
50% or more, depending on the terms, belongs to the government. Fetisov, on the other hand, combining business
and political sense, insisted on receiving every penny he earned. So he stayed put.
Drafted by the New Jersey Devils, Fetisov was initially
promised by Tikhonov that he would be released to play in the NHL if they won
another gold medal at the 1988 Olympics, which they did, but he refused to let
him leave the country, even after a visit to Moscow, contract in hand, from the
Devil’s President and General Manager Lou Lamoriello, who was even prepared to
help him defect, if necessary, but Fetisov was a proud Russian that refused to
leave under those conditions, never able to return home. Fetisov’s wife Lada recounts a story of what
happened in Kiev after Fetisov publicly refused to play any more for Tikhonov,
where he was arrested, handcuffed to a car battery and beaten until 4 am, with
the police eventually calling Tikhonov who informed them they could lock him up
or do whatever they wanted, but he was not allowed to leave the country. Finally he was called into the office of the
Minister of Defense Dmitry Yazov, second only to the Soviet President
(ironically dismissed from his post after a failed 1991 coup d'état attempt), who
screamed and cussed him out for wanting to play for “the enemy,” but Fetisov
instead offered to resign his position in the Red Army, where in 1989 he became
the first Soviet citizen granted a work visa that allowed him to play hockey in
the west, paving the way for literally thousands that followed. At age 31, he began his second career in the
NHL, which was hardly an easy transition, as he was forced to endure
red-baiting hostility when the American fans initially hated him for not
becoming an instant star and winner for their team, where he had difficulty
adjusting to a more individualistic playing style. He played nine seasons in the NHL, the final
three in
*Vyacheslav “Slava” Fetisov Notable Achievements and Awards:
•
Member of the Organizing Committee for 2014
•
Hockey Hall of Fame Inductee
•
IIHF Hall of Fame
•
USSR Hall of Fame
•
14 Soviet Hockey Championships
•
9 Time Soviet League All-Star
•
9-time IIHF All-Star
•
5-time IIHF best defenseman
•
7 Hockey World Championship Gold Medals
•
1 World Championship Silver
•
2 Olympic Gold Medals
•
1 Olympic Silver Medal
•
1
•
3 World Junior Championships
•
2 World Championship Bronze Medals
•
2 Time CCCP Player of the Year
•
2-time Soviet MVP
•
9 Years Soviet National Team Captain
•
3 Golden Stick Awards
•
Order of the Red Banner of Labour
•
Soviet Order of Honor
•
Soviet Order of Friendship
•
Silver Olympic Order
•
Order of Service to the Fatherland 4th Class
•
Order of Service to the Fatherland 3rd Class
•
2 Orders of the Badge of Honor
•
IIHF International Centennial All-Star
•
Honored Master of Sports
•
UNESCO Champion for Sport
•
Russian Diamond Award
•
Order of Lenin Award
•
2-time Stanley Cup Champion as a player
•
3-time Stanley Cup Finalist as a player
•
Stanley Cup champion as an assistant coach
•
2-time NHL all-star
•
Asteroid 8806 was renamed “Fetisov”
THE HOMECOMING (Blóðberg) The
Homecoming (Blóðberg) A-
Iceland (100
mi) 2015
d: Björn Hlynur Haraldsson
Some
people are insane. —Dísa (Harpa
Arnardóttir), opening line of the film
Another highly entertaining and terrific film from Iceland
by a first-time actor, writer, and director Björn Hlynur Haraldsson, who is
considered Iceland’s top actor, graduating from the Icelandic Drama Academy in
2001 while co-founding Vesturport, Iceland’s most innovative theater and film company, expanding his own first play Dubbeldusch to a feature-length
film. That being said, this is a
complex, exceedingly well-written, near Shakespearian, Scandinavian dark comedy
that defies expectations and will have audiences howling with delight in a
Bergman-like story about hidden secrets and family relations that operates on
multiple levels, exposing the boundaries of a seemingly successful marriage,
showing the fragility of established trust, as often what you know and depend
upon in a relationship is little more than an illusion, perhaps created with
the best of intentions, but their exposure can be devastating. Gunnar (Hilmar Jónsson) and his wife Dísa
(Harpa Arnardóttir) are seen sipping their morning coffee while reading the
Sunday papers in their luxurious, glass-windowed summer house in the countryside
where mountains can be seen off in the distance, but they seem to have invented
their own language to communicate with each other, beginning sentences without
ever completing them, starting a thought without finishing it, where to them
this all seems perfectly normal. A
sociologist in his mid-fifties, he’s written several successful self-help books
that have allowed him a comfortable lifestyle, tinkering with the house on
weekends, which is always a work in progress, while Dísa works as a nurse at a
nearby hospital. But even reading the
gossip columns, it’s pretty clear that after 30-years of marriage, having been
together since their teens, there’s plenty of distance between them. On the spur of the moment, the couple is
visited by their 25-year old son David (Hilmir Jensson), who is kind of a young
Icelandic Ben Affleck (who can act!), and with him is his attractive new
fiancée Sunna (Þórunn Arna Kristjánsdóttir) that he’s only just met in Denmark
while backpacking through Europe, but she’s adorable and both are obviously
madly in love. This announcement comes
as a huge surprise, as it’s the first time the family has heard about her, but
Sunna is smart, polite, and ambitious, where she seems like the ideal girl to
bring home to the parents.
But all is not sweetness and nice, as Sunna mentions the
name of her mother, growing more uncomfortable mentioning she’s never known
anything about her absent father, which makes Gunnar slink down in his chair as
if he’s been hit with a haymaker, suddenly unable to speak, offering a forced
smile of discomfort, but never utters a word afterwards. Terrified and desperate, despite being a
so-called expert in solving other people’s problems, he hasn’t a clue what to
do next, unable to face his darkest secret, as he hasn’t the heart to tell his
overwhelmingly elated son the truth, thinking he’d be crushed and would never
forgive him. The only person he speaks
to is his brother Gestur (Sveinn Ólafur Gunnarsson) who has recently survived
the fifth surgery of his head only to get news from his doctor that he needs
another one, as there are still traces left of cancer. Constantly fed a strange Icelandic mixture of
Arctic thyme called blóðberg in Icelandic (the original title), his girlfriend
Guðný (María Heba Þorkelsdóttir) swears it’s the only thing keeping him
alive. With time running out on his own
life, Gestur advises Gunnar to do what is right before it’s too late,
suggesting all may be forgiven if he tells the truth, but he has to give them
that chance, explaining “There is nothing more difficult than asking for
forgiveness.” Of course, Gunnar can’t
follow his brother’s advice and instead starts acting strangely and becomes
headstrong “against” the marriage, becoming a constant irritant, trying to
sabotage their relationship, hoping they’ll simply fall apart on their
own. But these two lovebirds have never
been happier, and are literally ecstatic to announce Sunna is pregnant. Gunnar is griefstruck and in sheer agony,
unable to fathom the extent of the damage he has caused. Dísa finds his outrageous behavior utterly
reprehensible, claiming she doesn’t even recognize him anymore.
Caught up in this dilemma, where ugly traces of his long
forgotten past are being pushed back to the surface, things are only going to
get worse, and Gunnar simply can’t allow this to happen. Just when you think you’ve got this film
figured out, something else comes along and changes everything, as Gunnar will
soon have to face the meeting with Sunna’s mother, Þórunn (Jóhanna Jónas), who
just happens to be invited over for dinner to celebrate the announcement of the
baby. Literally tearing his hair out
with fear, Gunnar is forced to face the inevitable, becoming one of the more
agonizingly awkward dinner parties on record, where everything that can
possibly go wrong does, leaving everyone aghast in silence until all hell
breaks loose. What separates this film
from other dramatic powerhouses like Thomas Vinterberg’s THE CELEBRATION (1998)
or Susan Bier’s AFTER THE WEDDING (2006) is the hellacious amount of humor
involved, where according to the director, people from Iceland will think this
is a comedy and be more influenced by the devious nature of the wickedly dark
humor, while other parts of the world may be drawn purely to the tragic
elements. The beauty of the film is that
it works both ways, as it’s a superbly written theater piece, casting the same
two actors as the older couple that appeared in the original play. The acting is extraordinary, completely in
synch with the changing dynamic required and constant emotional upheaval, where
this small, unheralded film coming from a tiny country of 300,000, producing 15
feature films in 2014, with only 40 screens nationwide (according to Icelandic
Film Centre - European Film Promotion), turns out to be one of the better
films seen all year. To think that
Ragnar Bragason’s Metalhead
(Málmhaus) (2013) and Benedikt Erlingsson’s OF HORSES AND MEN (2013) were
only released in the USA this year, along with the stunning success of Grímur
Hákonarson’s RAMS (2015), which won the Un Certain Regard Award at Cannes this
year, these films are a remarkable indication of the quality of films coming
out of Iceland today. Perhaps we should
pack our bags and plan an immediate visit, as these cultural offerings are
simply outstanding.
MUSTANG Mustang A-
Turkey France Germany
Qatar (94 mi) 2015
‘Scope d: Deniz Gamze Ergüven
Everything
changed in the blink of an eye. First
there was comfort, and then suddenly everything turned to shit.
—Lale (Güneş Nezihe Şensoy)
For film festivals other than Sundance, the stories and
slotted in-competition directors appear to be dominantly male-oriented—at
Cannes, 16 competition films by men and only 2 by women, and at the Chicago
Film Festival, there are 13 male competition films to only 3 by women—making it
a rare occurrence when viewers come upon a film written and directed by women,
where within the overall history of cinema this still remains relatively
unexplored territory. Winner of the
Europa Cinemas prize at Cannes for best European film in the Directors’
Fortnight, this film immediately stands out by conscientiously altering the
viewing patterns among the largely male-dominated efforts of contemporary
cinema, turning the tables and focusing on the treatment of women, particularly
younger adolescent girls who live under extremely repressive social
conditions. Co-written (with Alice
Winocour, the 2012 director of Augustine)
and directed by Deniz Gamze Ergüven, she was born in Ankara, Turkey while
studying literature and African history in Johannesburg, South Africa,
eventually learning to direct at La Fémis in
Paris, where her first feature film is France’s submission to the Academy Award
Foreign Film category. Set in a small
Turkish village by the Black Sea, hundreds of miles away from the more populous
city of Istanbul, the film opens innocently enough after the last day of school,
where instead of riding the bus, 12-year old Lale and her four older sisters
Nur (Doğa Zeynep Doğuşlu), Ece (Elit Işcan), Selma
(Tuğba Sunguroğlu), and Sonay (Ilayda Akdoğan) decide to walk
home instead, as it’s a beautiful sunny day, where they decide to play in the
shallow water with some boys in their class, mostly splashing around, but also
playing a game where girls sit on the shoulders of boys and try to knock the
other sister into the water. By the time
they get home, however, one by one they are beaten by their grandmother (Nihal
G. Koldaş), proclaiming their behavior immoral and scandalous, as the
girls are the subject of malicious gossip spread around town by their neighbor
who claims she saw them “pleasuring themselves” on the necks of the boys. As their parents died a decade earlier, the
grandmother has been raising them, but in this instance their domineering uncle
takes over, Erol, Ayberk Pekcan, the driver from Winter
Sleep (Kis uykusu) (2014), sending the oldest girls for a virginity test
while removing their computers and phones, forcing all girls to wear plain
brown dresses while placing iron bars on the windows locking them all indoors
in order to “protect” them.
Essentially believing they have to save the girls from
themselves, the film isn’t a comment against Islam, which is the primary
religion in Turkey, but against a patriarchal society where men, especially
those coming from a poorer educational background, expect women to protect
their purity and remain virgins until marriage, believing otherwise their
marital chances will be ruined, along with the honor and reputation of the
family. Narrated by the youngest sister
Lale, who offers a kind of outspoken Linda Manz sensibility from DAYS OF HEAVEN
(1978), the closeness of the girls is evident throughout, as the film pits the
expectations of the girls against that of their family, who immediately go
about the business of indoctrinating the girls how to be loyal and subservient
wives, turning the home into a “wife factory.”
Informed that their school education is over, older women are brought in
to teach them how to cook traditional dishes and sew clothes while the uncle
goes about the business of arranging marriages for the oldest two sisters,
including a stream of inspections from potential suitors, where the goal is to
have all the girls, ages ranging from 12 to 16, to be married off by the end of
summer. While the title is a reference
to the wild horses indigenous to the area, the symbolism of taming the wildness
out of the horses is not lost on the viewers, as much of the film plays out as
a clever battle of wills, where an unbridled, free spiritedness is pitted
against an entrenched conservatism that condemns their behavior. This is as much a battle of the West versus
the East, where the ideals of freedom and democracy conflict with the more
authoritarian, patriarchal governments of the Middle East that are more
inclined to impose a strict order upon a society rather than leave them to
their own inclinations, where the rights of women have traditionally been
stifled for centuries. Nonetheless, the
grandmother is equally conflicted, as she loves the girls, even indulges them
from time to time, and in the most hilarious scene of the film is willing to go
to outrageous methods to protect them from the wrath of the men after they
sneak off to see a local soccer game and can be seen on television cheering
them on, literally cutting off the power of the entire village to avoid
detection, yet she is also fully complicit in their subjugation.
The timing of the film uncannily follows in the aftermath
of the horrific murder of Özgecan
Aslan, a young Turkish university student that was brutally murdered during
an attempted rape, her body burned beyond recognition and her hands cut off to
avoid detection, an event that sparked outrage across the country leading to
massive protests demonstrating against unacceptable violence to women, the
first mass movement in support of Turkish women, where Aslan’s father was
quoted after her death, “We grew up with fairy tales. Once upon a time… Once upon a time there was
an Özge. And then there wasn’t
any.” The film is interestingly
presented like a fable with Lale’s innocence and fierce independence at its
center, with a focus on faces and bodies, often intermingled together,
heightening the tension between freedom and repression. Bathed in the radiant pastel-colored
cinematography of David Chizallet and Ersin Gok which beautifully captures the
carefree innocence of the young girls, but also how freely they move their
bodies as an extension of their inner spirit, the performances have a
wonderfully naturalistic feel, where the sisters are often framed in close
proximity to one another, almost as if they are an extension of one body and
one soul. What’s so effective about the
film is how each of the young girls is portrayed, smart, overly clever, and
mischievous, with healthy desires and a burgeoning curiosity, perhaps overly
Westernized, but from the outset that’s the way they’ve been taught. Adding to an interior psychological context
is moody, introspective music by Warren Ellis, some of which can be heard
here: Robes
De Couleur Merde in Mustang (Warren Ellis), including several with Nick
Cave, the duo that masterminded the glorious soundtrack of THE ASSASSINATION OF
JESSE JAMES BY THE COWARD ROBERT FORD (2007).
The haunting music suggests an element of fragility, a contrast to the
defiance and open rebellion they feel in response to their tyrannical treatment. One by one, as each sister is delivered to
the groom’s family like custom bought merchandise delivered to order, the
results are mixed, as only the oldest is married to the boyfriend of choice,
while all the others are forced to resist in their own ways, often with
staggering consequences. While the
youngest is the most independent and outspoken, she is literally the anchor of
the film, where the film is largely seen through her eyes, with a narrative
slowly evolving from light-hearted comedy to tragedy, where much of this plays
out in the realm of horror, though to the director’s credit, even the most
tragic sequences are delicately handled.
While there is a window of hopeful optimism, the film offers a
beautifully observant exposé on childhood ending all too soon, where an idyllic
innocence hits a brick wall of male-enforced societal rigidity that becomes
fixated on adolescent women, all but imprisoning them for the rest of their
lives.
Zaza Urushadze – Tangerines
Michael Fassbender – Slow West (2) + Steve Jobs (1)
Viggo Mortenson – Jauja
*Jason Segel – The End of the Tour
Jacob Tremblay – Room
Samuel L. Jackson – The Hateful Eight
Anne Dorval – Mommy
Nina Hoss – Phoenix
*Zhao Tao – Mountains May Depart
Lou Roy-Lecollinet – My Golden Days
Teyonah Parris – Chi-Raq
Rooney Mara – Carol
Roman Madyanov – Leviathan
*Benicio
del Toro – Sicario
Vincent Rottiers – Dheepan
Jules Gauzelin – A Childhood
Mark Ruffalo – Spotlight
Emory Cohen – Brooklyn
Suzanne Clément – Mommy
Elena Lyadova – Leviathan
Pauline Etienne – Eden
Nina Kunzendorf – Phoenix
Tatja Seibt – Homesick
*Kate Winslet – Steve Jobs
Arnaud Desplechin France
My Golden Days
*Xavier Dolan Canada Mommy
Hou Hsiao-hsien Taiwan China Hong Kong
France The Assassin
Lisandro Alonso
Argentina Denmark France
Mexico Germany Brazil
Netherlands USA Jauja
Christain Petzold Germany Phoenix
Todd Haynes USA Carol
BEST SCREENPLAY
Asghar Farhadi – About Elly
Jia Zhang-ke – Mountains May Depart
*Julie Peyr and Arnaud Desplechin –
My Golden Days
Josh Singer and Tom McCarthy – Spotlight
Nick Hornby, adapted from Colm Tóibín – Brooklyn
Quentin Tarantino – The Hateful Eight
Mikhail Krichman – Leviathan
Mátyás Erdély – Son of Saul
*Mark Lee Ping Bing – The
Assassin
Serhiy Mykhalchuk and
Yevgeni Privin – Under Electric Clouds
Benjamin Kasulke and Stéphanie Anne Weber Biron – The
Forbidden Room
Ed Lachman – Carol
About Elly
A Childhood
The Homecoming
My Golden Days
*Spotlight
Brooklyn
BEST ART DIRECTION
Ex Machina
A Pigeon Sat On a Branch Reflecting On Existence
Son of Saul
The Assassin
Under Electric Clouds
*The Forbidden Room
Mommy
Leviathan
*Me and Earl and the Dying Girl
Phoenix
600 Miles
My Golden Days
BEST COSTUMES
Far From the Madding Crowd
Coming Home
Mustang
The Assassin
Brooklyn
*Carol
Ben Salisbury and Geoff Barrow – Ex Machina
Niaz Diasamidze – Tangerines
Stefan Will – Phoenix
*Warren Ellis – Mustang
Lim Giong – The Assassin
Carter Burwell – Carol
BEST DOCUMENTARY
*The Salt of the Earth
Heart of a Dog
Red Army
The Look of Silence
Amy
We Come As Friends