Poulet au vinaigre

Pauline Lafont and Lucas Belvaux in Poulet au vinaigre

Claude Chabrol's Poulet au vinaigre, from 1985, is among his most potent and well constructed films. A murder mystery set in a small town in Normandy, Poulet au vinaigre revolves around a wheelchair bound invalid (Stephane Audran) and her teenaged son, Louis (Lucas Belvaux). A trio of local burghers are pressuring the pair, through unsavory means, to sell their crumbling estate so it can be developed. Mother and son respond in kind and soon townsfolk are meeting grisly fates. Inspector Lavardin (Jean Poiret) is called in to solve the case (or cases) and he proceeds to cajole, bully, beat, and even waterboard the suspects until they spill the beans.

Adapted by Chabrol and Dominique Roulet from her novel Une mort en trop, the source material suits the most Hitchcockian of French directors to a tee. When Chabrol pictures Louis carrying his mother up the steps of their manse, one can't help but think of Norman Bates and his mother in Psycho. The theme of surveillance is introduced in the title sequence, in which the inhabitants of the town attending a party are viewed through a 35mm lens taking snapshots, and throughout the film someone is always spying on someone else. If Chabrol's essence is to be distilled down to a single theme it is the omniscience of human mendacity lurking behind the façade of bourgeoise propriety. Even the inspector seems to act not out of a thirst for justice, but out of a desire to express his will to power. 

This picture of the bleak vectors of human behavior was not released in the States (Chabrol was then at his commercial and critical nadir), but proved popular enough to spawn a sequel (1986's Inspector Lavardin) and subsequent television series. The cast is first rate, particularly Poiret, though Audran is a little too stiff to portray psychosis. Pauline Lafont, daughter of Bernadette and sister of Elisabeth, is very striking as the village minx. Knowing her premature fate, she fell to her death hiking near a ravine in 1988, it is hard not to look at her in her youthful glory without a feeling of tristesse. 

Benediction

Jeremy Irvine and Jack Lowden in Benediction

A somber meditation on spiritual longing, Terence Davies' Benediction is a very good biopic of the poet and World War 1 veteran, Siegfried Sassoon. Perhaps not up to the level of The House of Mirth or A Quiet Passion (itself a biopic of Emily Dickinson), but very much a product of Mr. Davies' pen and vision. The film could have been called Distant Voices, Still Lives 2 or Distant Voices, Still Camera.

Despite my jape, Davies' fixed camera is appropriate to this tale of remembrance, loss, and trauma. Davies' shows how Sassoon's wartime experiences haunted him for the rest of his days. When played by Jack Lowden as a younger man cavorting with the Bright Young Things, Sassoon's wounds are evident. By the time Peter Capaldi takes over the role for Sassoon's dotage, he is a dry husk of a man living in the "vanished vigil of my days" with a glimmer of intelligence, but no empathy. Sassoon's conversion to Roman Catholicism is handled ambivalently, there is no road to Damascus moment, but his hunger for grace is palpable.

Davies' sagely uses newsreel footage accompanied by Lowden's recitation of Sassoon's poetry to picture The Great War. These are used as flashbacks contrasted with his life before and after World War 2. Thus, Davies portrays Sassoon as never escaping the torment of the war, particularly the loss of his close companion and fellow poet, Wilfred Owen. Davies' use of newsreel footage probably stemmed from economic constraints, but the macabre clips are suitably horrifying.

Davies' has compacted the scope of Sassoon's life. His mysterious wartime wounding and an affair with a Hessian prince are just some of the intriguing episodes that he has excised, this feature film would have had to expand into a ten hour series in order to explore Sassoon in full. Despite a meagre budget, Davies was able to land an impressive cast for Benediction. There are no bad performances and quite a few superb ones: especially Simon Russell Beale, Julian Sands, Calam Lynch, Jeremy Irvine, Ben Daniels, and Suzanne Bertish. Despite his excellent reading of Sassoon's work, Jack Lowden is merely serviceable. His performance lacks the poet's grandiloquence and self regard. Peter Capaldi, however, makes Sassoon's hollowness devastating. 

Davies is overly literary, at times. When he has Sassoon criticize lover Stephen Tennant's narcissism, the effect is redundant because Davies has already established this visually (Tennant is forever gazing at his reflection in a mirror). Nevertheless, Davies' taste and talent are never in doubt throughout Benediction. It is one of the more rewarding films of the past year. 

Let Them All Talk

Steven Soderbergh's Let Them All Talk, an HBO film that premiered in 2020, is a slight dramedy that centers on three women of a certain age taking a transatlantic voyage on a cruise ship. Meryl Streep portrays Alice, a literary lioness who is making the trip to receive an award in London and make amends to her two college chums. Alice's beloved and feckless nephew, played by Lucas Hedges, accompanies them and falls for Alice's literary agent in an all too familiar narrative arc.

However, the very familiarity of Let Them All Talk is part of its charm. The primary appeal of the film is watching La Streep, Dianne Wiest, and Candice Bergen interact, kvetch, and dish. Hedges, the most passive of current leading men, has little to do but genuflect to his elders. The roles Streep and Wiest play are so closely aligned with their screen image (flinty and flighty, respectively) that they are able to inhabit their roles effortlessly. Streep, never one of my favorites, nails her character's intelligence and pomposity.

Ms. Bergen's Roberta is the most aggrieved and desperate of the three characters and the actress called upon by Soderbergh and screenwriter Deborah Eisenberg to do the most heavy lifting. Bergen's early woodenness as an actress led to some comparisons of her with Charlie McCarthy, her ventriloquist father's dummy. The comparisons were cruel but not inapt. She started to emerge from her cocoon in 1979's Starting Over with a comic turn that bordered on self-flagellation. It was with George Cukor's Rich and Famous, in 1981, that she found her groove, culminating on television with the brassy Murphy Brown. 

In Let Them All Talk, Bergen plays a faded magnolia reduced to working as a brassiere fitter in a department store. She makes her character's crassness and anguish tangible. Soderbergh, one of our directors most attuned to the humiliations of the workplace, succinctly depicts her plight, but, unlike Alan J. Pakula in Starting Over, does not allow her desperation to verge on self-parody. Throughout the film, there are documentary like asides that focus on the behind the scenes work being done on the ship. Another example of Soderbergh's career long adherence to formal realism.

Let Them All Talk employed, reportedly, a great deal of improvisation on set. However, Ms. Eisenberg's script employs a strong sense of structure that gives the film the strengths, and weaknesses, of a New Yorker short story. The film has a good deal of Apollonian architecture, but no sense of Dionysian rage. It is tidily structured, but bloodless. There is much nice work, but nice is a limiting adjective. Thomas Newman's big band score is tunefully appropriate and I enjoyed Daniel Algrant's turn as a writer of popular mysteries. Mr. Algrant's work as a director has been unfortunately limited and has not received appropriate appreciation. I particularly commend to the reader his Naked in New York. All in all, Let Them All Talk skims the surface swimmingly, but fails to plumb any real depths. 

Valley of the Gods

Josh Hartnett in Valley of the Gods

I was never bored by the spectacle of Lech Majewski's Valley of the Gods, merely stupefied. This bonkers 2019 film seeks to combine Navajo spirituality, ecological consciousness raising, and fantasy. The nominal plot concerns a copywriter (Josh Hartnett) who has a breakdown after the dissolution of his marriage. His psychiatrist (John Rhys-Davies) tells him that he fears the absurdism of life so much that he must face his fears and embrace absurdism. Hartnett swallows this dubious advice and begins to face his fears. He puts on a blindfold and walks backwards through LA. Surviving this, he heads to the Valley of the Gods in Utah for further challenges. He climbs a mountain with pots and pans tied to his legs. Then, he starts writing his magnum opus with a fountain pen in the middle of the desert.

His work concerns a combined Charles Foster Kane and Lucifer figure (played by John Malkovich) who looks down on mere mortals from his mountain top castle. There he has imprisoned various artists and thinkers who he trots out for his occasional amusement. Keir Dullea appears as a butler who has seemingly wandered in from the Overlook Hotel. Indeed, Jan Harlan, Kubrick's brother-in-law, is listed as one of Valley of the Gods' producers.

Intertwined with all this twaddle is a portrait of the Navajo nation in Utah battling a uranium mining company who want to develop their land. Somehow the strands of Native American spirituality and ritual are the strongest parts of the film. Majewski's unyielding pictorialism successfully integrates the valley's topography into the film. However, by the time Malkovich's character is ritually mummified, most will have ceased to try to make heads or tails out of Valley of the Gods. 

There are antecedents for this film. Namely films set in the American desert by émigré directors that would be enhanced if the viewer had a peyote button or two. Perhaps one day some enterprising repertory theater will book a triple feature of Zabriskie Point, Arizona Dream, and Valley of the Gods.

Bonkers or Groovy, Man

Quick Takes, September 2022

Michael J. Pollard and the magnificent Lee Purcell in Dirty Little Billy

An outlaw origin story and revisionist Western, Stan Dragoti's Dirty Little Billy, from 1972, is a grungier McCabe and Mrs. Miller on Quaaludes. Michael J. Pollard stars as a demythologized and demented Billy the Kid in a film as historically inaccurate as the more mythic biopics. Dirty Little Billy is slow as molasses and virtually plotless with a visual palette that ranges from taupe to soot grey. The first shot is a close-up of a mud puddle and Dragoti seems committed to rub his audiences' faces in the mire. He succeeds somewhat, but it is a dubious achievement. Lee Purcell, as a soiled dove, is the highlight of this woebegone film.

Robert Altman's The Company, from 2003, takes a backstage and barely fictionalized look at Chicago's Joffrey Ballet. The dance sequences are thrilling and Altman's documentary style gives the film some forward momentum. However, the attempt to flesh out the characters, particularly the lovers played by Neve Campbell and James Franco, are sketchy. Malcom McDowell is miscast as an Italian-American artistic director. He nails the character's egoism, but is about as Italian as a crumpet. Despite the plot's deficiencies, dance lovers will find much to enjoy here. Featuring appearances and choreography by Lar Lubovitch and Robert Desrosiers and an interesting musical score by Van Dyke Parks.

Greg Glienna's Relative Strangers, from 2006, is a rancid retooling of Meet the Parents (which Glienna wrote) and Flirting With Disaster. Uptight yuppie Ron Livingston's birth parents turn out to be Louisiana rednecks Kathy Bates and Danny DeVito. The one note jokes land with a thud and there is little the talented cast (Edward Herrmann, Christine Baranski, Neve Campbell, Beverly D'Angelo, Bob Odenkirk) can do amidst the ham handed direction.

Jordan Harris and Andrew Schrader's The Age of Reason, from 2014, is a portrait of Texas teenage suburban anomie. The acting is amateurish, except for Tom Sizemore's drunken Dad, but the direction and editing show assurance. Too overly derivative of the work of Richard Linklater to earn my seal of approval, the film still shows signs of promise. 

Abbas Kiarostami's Close Up, from 1990, is a peculiar docu-drama concerning Hossein Sabzian, an Iranian who impersonated film director Mohnsen Makhmalbaf and his subsequent trial. The participants play themselves in recreations. The trial, with the judge playing to the camera a la Joseph Welch, is actual footage. It drags the film a bit, but Close Up finds Kiarostami at his most playful.

A two hour commercial for the US Air Force circa 1955, Anthony Mann's Strategic Air Command contains feeble humor, gorgeous VistaVision footage of B36s and B47s in flight, real life bomber pilot Jimmy Stewart, and June Allyson. A must for fans of vintage aviation, otherwise eminently skippable. My wife and I often play a game we call "Schlock, Schmaltz or Kitsch". Victor Young's score is schmaltz. Strategic Air Command verges on kitsch.

My wife is from Indiana, Pennsylvania, hometown to Mr. Stewart growing up and site of The Jimmy Stewart Museum. On the town's main thoroughfare, Philadelphia Street, the crosswalks are linked with the voice of a Stewart imitator (Rich Little?) telling you when it is safe to walk. 

The Quiller Memorandum

George Segal

Michael Anderson's The Quiller Memorandum, from 1966, is a spy thriller set in Berlin. It is part of a wave of 'serious' espionage films (and spoofs) released in the wake of the James Bond films such as The Spy Who Came in From the Cold, The Ipcress File, The Counterfeit Traitor, Torn Curtain, etc. The British station chief (Alec Guinness) in Berlin hand picks Quiller (George Segal) to flush out a cadre of neo-Nazis led by Max von Sydow

The film was based on a novel by Adam Hall, one of the many pseudonyms of Elleston Trevor, and was adapted by Harold Pinter. Among Pinter's strengths was his ability portray the evasiveness of identity and the tendency of alpha males to vie for dominance, so the spy thriller is a good fit for his talents. I won't soon forget Guinness illustrating Segal's mission with a pair of currant buns. Pinter's script is a plus, but the film as a whole is a mixed bag. The plot is nonsensical with a plethora of holes. In the novel, Quiller is a British agent and there is no attempt in the film to explain why an American is under the command of British intelligence. It is probably for the best that Segal was not made to portray an Englishman.

Segal, who died last year, is a neglected actor. He isn't even included in David Thomson's Biographical Dictionary of Film. Yet, he had a very good stretch as a leading man from 1965's King Rat to 1974's California Split; an era in which Hollywood embraced quirky leads. He is not up to the challenges of the torture sequence in The Quiller Memorandum, but his hipster twinkle provides an interesting contrast to the European hauteur of Guinness and von Sydow and Segal is up to the verbal demands of the script. Both von Sydow and Guinness are predictably superb. The German supporting players are also exemplary. Older viewers will recognize the scarred visage of Gunther Meisner who played Arthur Slugworth in the original Willy Wonka... film.

Unfortunately, Michael Anderson was a journeyman director. The Quiller Memorandum's action and suspense scenes are rote. Segal's hallucinations after being dosed by von Sydow's minions would look silly in a student film. The romantic scenes between Segal and Senta Berger are listless. Ms. Berger, not the strongest actress, is not as out of place here as a German teacher than she is in something like Major Dundee. Her inexpressiveness actually suits a character who is not all she seems. John Barry's score is a highlight, evoking the paranoia of the plot better than Anderson's camera does with an interesting use of celeste and theremin. 

Unknown Pleasures

Zhoa Tao and Wu Qiong in Unknown Pleasures

My favorite of his films, Jia Zhangke's Unknown Pleasures, from 2002, chronicles the feckless adventures of two millennial teens in the northern Chinese city of Datong. Bin Bin (Zhao Weiwei) and Xiao Ji (Wu Qiong) are unemployed and disaffected. They watch TV, go to pool halls and discos, and generally hang out doing something close to nothing. Xiao Ji falls for a dancer and gangster's moll, Qiao Qiao (played by Zhangke's wife, muse, and collaborator, Zhao Tao), which causes him much misery. When Bin Bin is rejected by the army because he has contracted hepatitis, the two lads collaborate on a futile crime.

The balm like artifices of theater, music, dance, and film are contrasted throughout with the grim realities of life in Datong. China more closely resembles gangster capitalism than a socialist state in Zhangke's vision. While the economic gains of China post-Mao have helped its coastal regions, its hinterlands have lagged developmentally. Datong remains mired in poverty and decay. The crumbling infrastructure and and desolate apartment blocks that Zhangke picture underlie his characters' anomie. The arts seem to be the only outlet for his characters' to express their strivings for freedom and emotional release. Bin Bin acknowledges this when he compares his plight to the free rein enjoyed by the Monkey King, a hero of Chinese legend portrayed in cartoon form on the television. The use of music stresses the characters' desire to transcend their humdrum reality. Mr. Zhangke himself sings an aria in a not insignificant cameo. The finale offers us a caged (jail) bird singing.

The numerous video screens points towards not only the Western influences that help form the teens' rebellious pose, but also to the repressive nature of the Chinese authorities. A vomitous spew of state propaganda emits from the television. The film is set amidst the crackdown on the Falun Gong followers to which Bin Bin's mother belongs. 

Unknown Pleasures is a realistic film that occasionally bursts into satiric surrealism. Shot on digital video in 19 days, the film has a feel of vivid immediacy. Zhangke cuts from a fireworks display celebrating Beijing's landing of the 2008 Summer Olympics to a tonally somber shot of urban desolation. A diner scene featuring a discussion of Pulp Fiction ends with a whip pan and a cut to a dance floor that brims with energy and excitement. Despite its downbeat themes, Unknown Pleasures is an exhilarating movie. Ms. Tao's performance is not only a highlight of the film, but also one of the finest of our century.

Love and Mercy

Paul Dano as the young Brian Wilson

Bill Pohlad's Love and Mercy is a wan biopic that diminishes its subject, the Beach Boys' Brian Wilson, with an unfocused look at two key periods of his life: the golden era of his musical career in the 60s and his subsequent mental deterioration and then his reclamation by his present spouse after being bamboozled into 24 hour care by psychologist and snake oil salesman Eugene Landy during the 80s. 

Paul Dano is impressive as the younger Brian, but no other characters project as more than one dimensional types. Pohlad seems so set on portraying the 60s with verisimilitude that no characters or dramatic conflicts emerge. The studio set pieces just sit there like a David Wolper production and we gaze and go, yes, that looks like the Gold Star recording studio and, my. that actress looks just like Carol Kaye, but to what end. The supporting players exist to trumpet Wilson's genius (Hal Blaine) or snipe at him like trolls (Mike Love, Murray Wilson). Wilson's meltdown is murkily explored in pat set pieces in the family pool and living room sandbox. 

John Cusack is miscast as the older Brian. An intelligent actor, he lacks the intuitive feel to play an idiot savant. He and Elizabeth Banks, as his lady love, have a nice rapport, but their romance is threatened by the machinations of Paul Giamatti's Dr. Landy. A gifted performer, Giamatti overacts here to such an extent that his doctor seems more like a frothing gargoyle than a manipulative guru. If underplayed, the role might have come off a bit more sinister and a lot more believable. Director Pohlad seems as much at sea when framing the action as he is with modulating performances. Shots are often so haphazardly set up that there is minimal dramatic impact. (5/16/16) 
 

Operation Mincemeat

Colin Firth

John Madden's Operation Mincemeat, currently streaming on Netflix, reminds me of the host of World War 2 films (most admittedly dire) churned out in the 1950s and 60s. In fact, the story of Operation Mincemeat served as the basis, in 1956, for Ronald Neame's forgettable The Man Who Never Was which starred Clifton Webb (in the role Colin Firth fills here) and Hollywood exile Gloria Grahame. Both films detail a disinformation campaign by British intelligence in 1943. The invasion of Sicily was imminent, so the powers that be wanted the Axis commanders to be mislead about the Allies next move. Documents were forged that indicated an invasion of Greece was forthcoming. These documents were planted on a corpse which was subsequently dropped off the coast of fascist Spain. As the planners of the operation had hoped, Spanish officials conveyed the gist of the documents to the Nazi high command and the invasion of Sicily was met with only token opposition.

Like The Man Who Never Was, Operation Mincemeat is faced with a problem of dynamics. How is one to make a feature film of people standing around desks talking engaging, if not exciting? The success of Operation Mincemeat is chiefly due to Madden's deft handling of a strong cast. The leads are perfectly cast, matched expertly with their characters' traits: Colin Firth (a stiff upper lip devotion to duty), Matthew Macfadyen (socially awkward and repressed), Kelly MacDonald (smart and earnest), Jason Isaacs (arrogant malice). The always welcome Johnny Flynn smoothly embodies Ian Fleming. His mellifluous narration gives the film a needed lyrical note. Best of all is Penelope Wilton as a staffer still mourning losses from the Great War.

Michelle Ashford's script adds an invented love triangle and a piercing glimpse at the backbiting and bureaucratic politicking contained within any intelligence service. Usually, I don't like romantic elements tacked onto true stories in order to spice things up, but I feel it added another dimension to the characters in Operation Mincemeat. I also appreciated how Ms. Ashford makes no sop to modern sensibilities in her portrayal of her characters' romantic longings. There is no sex, just a lot of mooning about with the occasional peck on the cheek. The film lacks any invigorating sensuality (it is British), but it captures a cosseted nation of a bygone era. 

Mr. Madden's stolid attributes as a director are underrated, but boast an economy of means for moderate effect. He may not be in even the second or third tier of British directors, but I prefer his understated exploration of character to, say, the elephantine concoctions of Christopher Nolan. Madden's solid visual construction seems old-fashioned in our frenetic, media-drenched age, but his works will outlive those of his flashier contemporaries. 

The Black Swan

Maureen O' Hara and Tyrone Power in The Black Swan

Henry King's The Black Swan is a dull Technicolor swashbuckler from 1942. 20th Century Fox wanted to emulate the success Warner Brothers had had with Errol Flynn's pirate pictures. The Black Swan was originally a novel by Rafael Sabatini, the Dumasesque writer whose Captain Blood had provided the basis for the 1935 Michael Curtiz film which had launched Flynn's career. King who had guided star Tyrone Power in such hits as In Old Chicago, Alexander's Ragtime Band, and Jesse James failed to bring the panache to the project that Curtiz had lent to both Captain Blood and 1940's The Sea Hawk, but the film was still a great commercial success.

Part of my issues with the film was that I felt that screenwriters Ben Hecht and Seton Miller failed to capture Sabatini's dash and narrative drive. Indeed, their script has little to do with the source novel. Even at a scant 84 minutes, the film feels both slow and belabored. Furthermore, Power is not ideally cast. Even his mustache feels off. His Jamie Waring is supposed to be a passionate brigand, but Power is too suave for the role. When we see Power guzzling spirits with George Sanders, wine dripping down his throat, the effect is incongruous. The poised and sophisticated charm of Zorro was a much better fit for Power. Likewise, Sanders is cast as a coarse Scottish pirate. Sanders, like Power, gives a passable performance, but he was much better suited for roles that emphasized his urbanity. 

If ever there was an actress suited for Technicolor epics, it was the fiery ginger Maureen O'Hara. Her romantic scenes with Power are the highlight of the film, if a bit rapey for post-modern sensibilities. Still, she was much better utilized in a similar role in Frank Borzage's 1945 pirate epic, The Spanish Main. 

Leon Shamroy won the Oscar for Best Cinematography for The Black Swan, but the film's use of three strip Technicolor seems crude and dated next to such contemporary color films as the Power vehicle, Blood and Sand. Backgrounds in The Black Swan seem overly monochromatic, like the blue dungeon where Power suffers on the rack (Power seems to have his shirt off for much of the film and this does not seem to be by accident). Since Shamroy did some of the most striking color photography of the era, see especially his work in Leave Her to Heaven, the fault seems to lie with King. Indeed, his black and white films, like The Song of Bernadette and The Gunfighter, are more visually impressive than his color ones. The Black Swan also features Laird Cregar, Thomas Mitchell, and Anthony Quinn. With the talents involved, it should have been a better film, but I did enjoy Alfred Newman's score. 

The Best of Jean-Luc Godard

              

                                                                    Jean-Luc Godard

                                                                        1930 - 2022

       "He who jumps into the void owes no explanation to those who stand and watch."

1)   Vivre Sa Vie                                            1962

2)   Contempt                                                1963

3)   Weekend                                                 1967

4)   Histoire(s) du cinema                            1988

5)   Breathless                                              1960

6)   Alphaville                                               1965

7)   Goodbye to Language                           2014

8)   Pierrot le Fou                                          1965

9)   First Name: Carmen                              1983

10) La Chinoise                                            1967

A colossus of the cinema, Godard is the most significant film figure to emerge from the aftermath of World War 2. An influential critic before directing his first feature, Godard and his cohorts in the politiques des auteurs were reacting against the French tradition of quality represented by Marcel Carne, Julien Duvivier, Rene Clement, et al. They favored the more personal visions of a Renoir, Vigo or Bresson and they succeeded as filmmakers beyond their wildest dreams.

As his title Histoire(s) du cinema implies, there is a multiplicity of layers and allusions in his work; enough to get lost in over a lifetime. His work is central to any consideration of film, semiotics, structuralism, post-modernism, auteurism, etc., during the past century. I can't abide his Dziga Vertov period, but his dotage seems to have rekindled his love of film for film's sake.

I also recommend: Le Petit Soldat, Les Carabiniers, A Woman is a Woman, Band of Outsiders, Masculin Feminin, Made in USA, Passion, Hail Mary, Nouvelle Vague, and The Image Book.

The Revenant

 

Alejandro Iñárritu's The Revenant is a largely successful epic. The combat scenes impressed me with their technical virtuosity as no film has since Michael Mann's The Last of the Mohicans. Iñárritu expresses both the grandeur and harshness of the American frontier quite well. His attempt to flavor his tale with Native American mysticism strikes a false note, however, and leaves The Revenant just short of classic status.

I can understand the rationale behind wanting to have a note of hopeful spirituality amidst the savagery and carnage here. Man is constantly tested in Iñárritu's films to display a glimmer of humanity in a dog eat dog existence; quite literally so in Amores Perros. DiCaprio's character is beset by Tom Hardy's sub-human villain, wolves, the elements, and an enraged bear. It makes sense that his character would flashback to the happy domestic scenes of his life in a Pawnee village.

However, the woozy tone of these moments doesn't jibe with the rest of the narrative. DiCaprio even has a vision of a pyramid of buffalo skulls for no apparent reason except that maybe Iñárritu (and Leo) want to do a little ecological consciousness raising. DiCaprio's ability to have one foot both in the pioneer and native American world is overly stressed and smacks of sententious liberal gloss. The Revenant's last vision of DiCaprio's dead missus seems out of a cheesier epic, namely Mel Gibson's Braveheart.

Still, I don't want to underestimate The Revenant's power. I was never bored during the entire two and a half hour runtime. DiCaprio has been used better before, but is fine here and deserves his career award. Tom Hardy, using the same Yosemite Sam with a mouthful of mashed potatoes voice he did in Lawless, is a memorable evildoer and Domhnall Gleeson is moving as Captain Henry. The Revenant is a testament to Iñárritu's gifts and to his limitations. Overall, though, both Birdman and The Revenant show that he has grown as an artist. (4/27/16) 

Everybody Wants Some!!

Blake Jenner and Zoey Deutch in Everybody Wants Some!!

Richard Linklater's Everybody Wants Some!! struck me as one of the lesser efforts by one of our better filmmakers. At least part of the problem of this self-described sequel to Dazed and Confused is that Linklater was not as fortunate in his casting as he was in 1993. Blake Jenner, Glen Powell, and Ryan Guzman don't give the film the juice that McConaughey, Posey, Affleck, Jovovich, Zellweger, et al, ad gloriam, ad nauseam did twenty years ago. Linklater had a similar problem with Jason London in Dazed and Confused: charisma on film remains hard to predict.

Like its predecessor, Everybody Wants Some!! haphazardly chronicles the social life and mating habits of young Texans. The Linklater stand-in has left behind his small Texas town of the late 70s and started the 80s as a baseball player at college. He is greeted by his teammates, initiated into the group, and joins them for their rites: playing Nerf basketball in their dorm, hitting the club scene, and cruising the streets for action. The distaff side is slighted here, though. In Dazed and Confused, Linklater spent as much time on Parker Posey harassing the freshman gals as did on Ben Affleck and his cohorts trying to paddle Wiley Wiggins. There is not much of an attempt here at female characterization and the film suffers for it. Zoey Deutch is charming, though, as the deus ex girlfriend.

In both films, Linklater portrays youth as a time for trying on different identities: stoner or jock, stud or S.N.A.G. This leads to the most successful sequences in Everybody Wants Some!!, the nightclub scenes which exude aimless fun. Our heroes visit a disco, a honky-tonk bar, and a punk club in a search for identity and female companionship. Though the search for identity is more fluid for the young, I don't think it is quite as open-ended as Linklater portrays it here. Some, like the Hemingway fixated Adam Goldberg character in Dazed and Confused, hold onto their chosen identity so tightly it causes them pain; but pain is not in the script for Everybody Wants Some!!. 

However, when the Linklater stand-in meets his lady love (a theater major), we can envision him putting aside his childish things (like his baseball glove) for an 8mm camera. That lies in the future for the protagonist. For now, he has to go to class where, like Wiley Wiggins at the end of Dazed and Confused, he is able to get some well-earned sleep. The sense of deja-vu is comforting and nostalgic, but not particularly illuminating. (8/24/16)
 

Men

One of the many masks of Men

If Alex Garland's Men didn't inspire any great enthusiasm from me, it did provoke some grudging admiration. An ambivalent reaction may be precisely what Mr. Garland intended. On its surface, the film can be read as a rebuke to a misogynistic patriarchy. Harper (Jessie Buckley), grieving because of the death and probable suicide of her husband, rents an old country manor for a period of rest and recuperation. Instead, an assortment of local men augment her trauma and creep her out. Since all the local men are played by Rory Kinnear, a sense of supernatural entrapment is introduced. When a naked "Green Man" starts menacing Harper, it looks like the deck of preternatural paternalism is stacked against her. However, as is necessary for a heroine in a horror movie, Harper displays pluck and a facility with sharpened implements.

I was pleased to detect another layer in Men, a substrata, below the bash the patriarchy surface overly implied by its title. As a number of commentators have pointed out, Men also pictures dueling atavistic and Pre-Christian impulses represented by the masculine (but regenerative) Green Man and the feminine (but ferocious) Sheela na gig. Both figures are carved on a font in the village church, suggesting the pagan forces that survived the onset of Christianity in Britain. If anything, Garland beats us over the head with these two symbols, but does show restraint otherwise. I was glad we did not have to see Harper conquer her demons by going into full tilt Lizzie Borden mode. Sometimes less is more.

I also think it was wise because Jessie Buckley lacks a savage, atavistic edge. She is, however, expert at portraying modern neurotic women in peril. Women whose societal masks are cracking. Masks are a recurrent motif in the film with Rory Kinnear's casting as the various men a means to underline this theme. Mr. Kinnear is expert at acting out the full panoply of the ages of man.

I've enjoyed Alex Garland's work since the publication of his novel, The Beach. Even his lesser novels, screenplays, and films have displayed his talent. Nevertheless, his films have never coalesced into fully satisfying works. Men marks a small step forward. It is his best looking and designed film. I especially appreciated the slightly dowdy costume work by Lisa Duncan. However, I found Men to be too derivative for its own good, cribbing too much from The Shining, especially. Garland does share with Kubrick a rare grasp of the uncanny. Men stands just below the best of recent prestige horror. Men is both too arty and gross for mass consumption, but it is a must see for horror aficionados.

The Green Man in Men

 

Strawberry Mansion

A typically surreal moment from Strawberry Mansion

Kentucker Audley and Albert Birney's Strawberry Mansion is a Sci-Fi forelock scratcher that succeeds more as a modest spectacle more than it does as a comprehensible narrative. Set in 2035 in a future in which dreams are taxed by the government, the film follows James Preble, a sad sack dream auditor ( played by Mr. Audley), tasked with a particularly difficult case. He travels to an isolated mansion of an older woman living off the grid. Bella (Penny Fuller) has over two thousand VHS tapes of dreams that Preble needs to audit. She extends a warm welcome, but things are not as they appear. As Preble drops further down the rabbit hole of Bella's dreams, he becomes both emotionally entangled with her and intrigued with the possibility that she has uncovered a sinister element within dreams.

Birney's background is in animation and Strawberry Mansion benefits from the many surreal touches contained in the dream sequences. The film succeeds as a social satire, particularly the opening sequence where Preble orders a "chicken shake" at a fast food joint. There is a ramshackle quality to the film that is both disarming and charming. Strawberry Mansion, which features relatives of the directors in featured roles, has the feel of a home movie at times. Sets and costumes, particularly Preble's dream auditing helmet, look like the results of a fifth grade art project. Still, the film has enough professional elements, particularly Tyler Davis' cinematography, Dan Deacon's music and Penny Fuller's assured performance as Bella, for it to transcend its low budget origins. I won't argue that Strawberry Mansion is a fully satisfying film, but it shows promise.
 

Carol

Todd Haynes' Carol is an intelligent adaptation of Patricia Highsmith's novel The Price of Salt. As in his previous films, Haynes' transgressive protagonists attempt to transcend their repressed culture through art and love. Making love or art for Haynes' characters, be they 50s housewives or rock stars are liberating and heroic acts.

Haynes stresses the cloistered feel of 50s America: Rooney Mara is shot behind windows, grills, blinds, etc. to underline the blinkered and repressive nature of the culture she is navigating. When Cate Blanchett's Carol arrives in her life to court and spark her, Mara's shopgirl is primed for a sexual and spiritual awakening.

Haynes is unable to escape the limitations of Highsmith's novel, which is among her more one dimensional works. Carol is a larger than life figure who dwarves the stock characters around her; probably because Highsmith was gaga over the real life figure who inspired Carol. (I highly recommend Joan Schenker's biography of Ms. Highsmith) Mara, Kyle Chandler, and the rest of the cast are competent, but recede in the background as Blanchett's diva dominates the film. 

There is much to appreciate in Carol. As in Haynes' adaptation of Mildred Pierce, costumes and décor are gorgeous and add to the thematic thrust of the story: the tchotchkes and fripperies are the reward of the character's bourgeois strivings, but also the emblems of their imprisonment. 

John Magaro has a wonderful monologue right before he hits on Rooney Mara and Haynes gives his players the perfect spacing to make the moment both heartfelt and hopeless. However, he is unable to allow us to revel in his romantic pairing's flight to freedom across the American heartland. Unlike, say, Demme in Something Wild, Haynes has little feel for everyday Americana.

The coupling of Blanchett and Mara fails to generate enough electricity to allow us to share their sense of liberation and romantic fulfillment. Haynes, a cerebral filmmaker, has been able to provide moments of emotional release before. I'll never forget Richard Gere glimpsing his lost dog one last time in I'm Not There. Carol, while not quite suffering from the over-intellectualization of his Sirk pastiche Far From Heaven (Carol's cinematic twin), falls short of cinematic ecstasy. (4/19/16)

The Black Phone

Ethan Hawke and Mason Thames in The Black Phone

I'm baffled by the popularity of Scott Derrickson's The Black Phone, just as I was by its antecedent, It. Adolescents are being abducted in a Denver suburb by a mysterious vendor of black balloons nicknamed "The Grabber". Finney (Mason Thames) is the latest victim to be grabbed. He is imprisoned in a soundproof basement by a mask wearing Ethan Hawke. Finney's younger sister, who has a psychic gift akin to "The Shining", is helping the police in their investigation. Jeremy Davies is their wearisome Dad, an abusive alcoholic. There is an equally tiring subplot about bullying. Finney struggles to hatch an escape, aided by the other victims of "The Grabber" who communicate through the titular phone in the basement. I did not find that these disparate elements coalesced into anything other than the most mechanistic of thrillers.

The only redeeming qualities are Brett Jutkiewicz's cinematography and Mr. Hawke's efforts to enliven the proceedings. None of the junior members of the cast give memorable or coherent performances, highlighting Mr. Hawke's professionalism. His theatricality gives the film some much needed juice, but his character is all surface menace.

Mr. Derrickson has chosen to shoot the film in a realistic style, a choice I find wrong-headed, but Mr. Jutkiewicz's dark hued palette gives the film some continuity amidst a garbled narrative. The Black Phone is set in 1978, but no one in the production was old enough to remember the zeitgeist of the late 70s. Signifiers of the era from the film: a girl's yen for Danny Bonaduce, Sweet's "Fox on the Run", and the Edgar Winter Group's "Free Ride", are all from the glitter era of 1972-1974. 1978 was more about John Travolta, The Cars, and Linda Ronstadt. I guess such distinctions are unfathomable to to the present generation. 

What is more fatal to the success of the film is its total lack of feel for the uncanny. Derrickson's realistic approach can't possibly merge the film's supernatural elements with its police procedural, serial killer, and kids on bicycles (a la Stranger Things) aspects. A most unrewarding view. 

Best of 2021

                   

     1)    Quo Vadis Aida                                               Jasmila Zbanic

     2)    Undine                                                             Christian Petzold

     3)    Bergman Island                                              Mia Hansen-Love

     4)    Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy                      Ryusuke Hamaguchi

     5)    Riders of Justice                                             Anders Thomas Jensen

     6)    Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn                Radu Jude

     7)    Annette                                                            Leos Carax

     8)    France                                                              Bruno Dumont

     9)    The French Dispatch                                      Wes Anderson

     10)    The Hand of God                                          Paolo Sorrentino

          Honorable Mention

              Saint Maud -- Glass, Mandibles -- Dupieux, Hive -- Basholli

              The Worst Person in the World -- Trier, Pretend It's a City -- Scorsese 

     Movies I Enjoyed

     The Disciple, Drive My Car,

     Zola, Red Rocket,

     The Tragedy of Macbeth, 

     Murder Among the Mormons, Memoria,

     Mad God, The Velvet Underground, 

     Can't Get You Out of My Head, The Souvenir Part 2, 

     The Lost Daughter, The Power of the Dog,

     Passing, Summer of Soul,

     Shiva Baby, Candyman,

     Cry Macho, Censor,

     In the Earth, The Green Knight,

     The Automat, The Storms of Jeremy Thomas,

     The  Killing of Two Lovers, The Night House,

     White Tiger, Pig,

     French Exit, The Dry, Flee,

     Siberia, Barb and Star Visit Vista Del Mar,

     West Side Story, Nightmare Alley,

     The Sparks Brothers,

     Judas and the Black Messiah, No Sudden Move,

     Don't Breathe 2, Parallel Mothers,

     The Dig, Pink: All I Know So Far,

     Tick, Tick...Boom!, Benedetta,

     The Electric Life of Louis Wain, The Last Duel,

     Nine Days, The Water Man,

     Nitram, 

     Last Night in Soho, Yes Day,

     No Time to Die, Honey Dew,

     Best Sellers, The Matrix Resurrections,

     The Mad Woman's Ball, Marcel the Shell with Shoes On,

     Dune, Madame Claude,

     

   Below the Mendoza Line

     Werewolves Within, House of Gucci

     Hell Hath No Fury, Zeros and Ones, 

     Spider-Man: No Way Home, Bo Burnham Inside,

     The Suicide Squad,

     On the Rocks, Lansky,

     The Card Counter, Spencer,

     C'mon, C'mon, Wrath of Man, 

     Holler, Cyrano,

     Isaac, Old, The World to Come,

     Titane, Gaia, Electric Jesus,

     The Eyes of Tammy Faye, The Voyeurs,

     Being the Ricardos, Jakob's Wife,

     Malignant, The Trip, 

     Jolt, King Richard,

     Last Words, A Quiet Place 2,

     Willy's Wonderland,

     Don't Look Up, Halloween Kills, 

     Belfast, I Care a Lot,

     Free Guy, Antlers,

     Gunpowder Milkshake,

     Greenland, The Little Things,

     Good on Paper, Blithe Spirit,

     Al Davis vs. The NFL

   Haven't Seen

     The Souvenir Part Two, Macbeth, CODA,

     various comic book movies...

Among the many reasons I enjoy the David Bordwell/ Kristin Thompson website is that every New Year's day they print their top ten from ninety years previous. As Zhou Enlai was reputed to say about the effects of the French Revolution, it is always too early to say. 

                                    

     

The Outfit (2022)

Zoey Deutch and Mark Rylance in The Outfit

Graham Moore's The Outfit limits its parameters to one set, the store of a bespoke tailor in 1956 Chicago. The tailor, a fervent devotee of his craft, is fronting mob activity. There is a femme fatale, an overeager son of a mob boss, and his rival. Allegiances shift and blood is spilled. Moore's choice to emphasize the theatricality of his conceit pays dividends. Instead of opening up the film, he keeps it so tightly closed that the characters resemble snakes in a cage. His cast is smart in both senses of the word and the machinations of the plot are well oiled.

He is most fortunate to have Mark Rylance, the epitome of theatrical precision, as his tailor. Rylance easily assays both his character's meek exterior and the steely resolve that lurks beneath. Rylance's reading of the narration is more entertaining on its own than most movies are in their entirety. Still, The Outfit feels a little shopworn. If one has seen other film mysteries limited to one set, especially Rope and Sleuth, one might find the twists and turns of  The Outfit too pat. I did. Certainly, one character's resurrection and subsequent dispatch in the last act was a twist too many. Nevertheless, one can do far worse these days and I always enjoy seeing Johnny Flynn, Zoey Deutch, and Simon Russell Beale.