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| Toni Erdmann |
Cinematic odds and ends... in ascending order...
James Gray's The Lost City of Z is a misjudged failure. Gray seems at home in the jungle and captures moments of intrigue and beauty, but whenever his English hero returns to Europe the film flounders. Efforts to expose British classism and sexism are ham handed. Charlie Hunnam is a disaster as the lead and Sienna Miller is only slightly better as his missus. Only Robert Pattinson emerges unscathed with a nice turn as Hunnam's aide-de-camp. Costumes and cinematography are pretty, but the film fails to engage the mind.
Mike Flanagan's Gerald's Game is a slightly above average Stephen King adaptation. Carla Gugino and Bruce Greenwood star as a married couple whose getaway bondage weekend goes horribly awry. The scenario is on solid ground when picturing the power struggles of a marital union, but someone, King I assume, over eggs the pudding by providing a back story for Gugino's character revolving around incest. Henry Thomas is effective as her creepy Dad in a triumph of against type casting. Gugino and Greenwood are both underrated players who get to shine in this Netflix sponsored B, but Flanagan has yet to show he can be more than a routine horror director.
Somewhat more successful is Don Mancini's Cult of Chucky. Mancini goes for an artificial look for the mostly asylum set film, emphasizing primary colors which fit the graphic novel tone of the piece. Performances are solid and lead Fiona Dourif grounds the film. Not one I can recommend to the average viewer, but for horror fans this is satisfying fare.
Kelly Fremon Craig's The Edge of Seventeen is a promising debut. The picture is a fairly rote coming of age story. but Craig and a talented cast milk the formula for all its worth. Hailee Steinfeld, Woody Harrelson, Kyra Sedgwick, Blake Jenner and Haley Lu Richardson all provide memorable moments. The costumes are remarkably selected for a contemporary picture.
Otto Preminger's The Cardinal, from 1963, is the type of pot boiling bestseller that is rarely translated into film these days and when it is, it usually becomes a miniseries. The lead, Tom Tryon, shows why he became a writer, but Preminger's mise-en-scene is eye popping.
Pedro Almodóvar's Julieta is his best since Talk to Her. One of Pedro's less arch and gaudy works, Julieta plays like a Hitchcock film, one of the characters even name checks Patricia Highsmith. A mother reflects, in flashback, on her estrangement from her daughter and Almodovar shows, once more, that though there are plenty of comely boys in his world, his heart belongs to Mama. Almodóvar's empathy for his heroine is amplified by the heroic performances of Adriana Ugarte and Emma Suarez as Julieta then and now. The beautiful shot of a stag running alongside a train is alone worth the price of admission, but Julieta has many wonders.
Maren Ade's Toni Erdmann is a masterpiece, a tart look at sexism, parenting, globalization, sex roles and lots of other awkwardly painful stuff. Sandra Huller and Peter Simonischek, as her shaggy dog Dad, are nonpareil. Too bleak and off-putting for some, it tickled the darker region of my funny bone. Ade is not a very flashy director, but who needs flash when you have attuned players responding to sensitive direction and a smart script. I dread the American remake.
Jacques Rivette and Suzanne Schiffman's Out 1 is a towering and 12 hours long masterwork that will be fairly impenetrable to all but the hardiest cineastes. As to what this beautiful monstrosity is about, one could explore, endlessly, its focus on the theater or conspiracy theories, but it is chiefly about Paris, post-1968. Namely, a floundering counterculture trying to survive after its moment. Jean-Pierre Leaud personifies the French New Wave kids having a psychotic break while Erich Rohmer shows up in a cameo to embody the ancien regime. Hats off to Netflix for fleetingly airing this hard to find work.
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