Quick Takes, February 2025

Something is askew in Dos Monjes

Juan Bustillo's Dos Monjes (Two Monks) is a near masterpiece from 1934. This sound film is a delirious, expressionistic melodrama that verges on the surreal. Two monks are in conflict at a monastery, the fallout of a collapsed love triangle. The events of the past are told twice from the perspective of each combatant. This schizoid film is full of technical wizardry: swooping cranes, bifurcated wipes, and oblique angels. Even the grandfather clock is crooked in this one. Highly recommended.

Rich Peppiatt's Kneecap is a lively look at the rise of the titular Irish hip-hop group whose tunes, which feature Gaelic lyrics, offers a middle finger to British imperialism. The tone is delightfully rude and cheeky. Peppiatt's visual stylings, which includes animated overlays, are consistently inventive. Currently streaming on Netflix.

Ana DuVernay's Origin is one of the more neglected American releases of 2024. The film traces the origins of Isabel Wilkerson's book Caste: The Origins of Our Discontent. Wilkerson's book intertwines vignettes about Jim Crow America, Nazi Germany's racial laws, and India's treatment of the Dalit caste (known popularly as the untouchables) into an indictment of social hierarchies. The scenes of Wilkerson conducting her research do occasionally bog down in didacticism, but the scenes of Wilkerson's family life are moving and well acted. Origin contains one of the past year's best acting ensembles: especially Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor, Jon Bernthal, Connie Nielson, Nick Offerman, Blair Underwood, Audra McDonald, Niecy Nash, and Emily Yancy. Ultimately, Origin is a moving meditation not only about caste, but also mortality.

Nathan Silver's Between the Temples is the most moving and funny exploration of Jewish identity (and self-hatred) since Lemon. Jason Schwartzman stars as a troubled cantor in upstate New York who falls for one of his mitzvah students, the always welcome Carol Kane, to the disgruntlement of his family and community. The film, purposefully, provides more cringe worthy moments than laughs. Silver's supporting players are all in fine form, especially Robert Smigel. The film's visual approach, it looks like it was shot on video, is continually and disarmingly creative. 

The Zellner Brothers' Sasquatch Sunset feels like an extended, R rated version of the "Messin with Sasquatch" beef jerky advertisements, yet manages to transcend its lowly aspirations with humor and warmth. The flick is a decided advancement over their previous one, the stillborn Damsel. Riley Keough and Jesse Eisenberg and their fellow Bigfoots are to be commended for the all out zeal they bring to their performances. In the tradition of Keaton's Three Ages. 

Francis Galluppi's The Last Stop in Yuma County snuck into a few theaters in late 2023 to little notice, but it is a solid B film. Disparate strangers are stranded at a remote diner with two bank robbers in this desert noir which is beholden to Hemingway, The Petrified Forest, Hitchcock, Tarantino, and numerous B pictures from the 1950s. Galluppi's saving grace is a sense of humor and film craft. The fine acting ensemble keeps things from getting too cartoonish, especially Jim Cummings, Jocelin Donahue, and Gene Jones.

Yasujirō Ozu's That Night's Wife, released in 1930, is a silent crime melodrama that features a sickly child, a loving wife and a tortured husband driven to robbery in order provide for his family. The scenario is hokey, undynamic, and bathetic, the pacing extremely slow for a 65 minute picture. A kindly policeman corners the miscreant in his apartment where we are stuck for half of the picture's running time. Intimations of future genius are apparent, but this is lesser Ozu.

Frank Perry's Ladybug Ladybug is nuclear war drama that opened after the Kennedy assassination in 1963. A rural elementary school in Pennsylvania sends its charges home under the threat of annihilation. The film gauges the various reactions as the teachers and students face the prospect of impending doom. Nancy Marchand and Estelle Parsons have their moments, but Perry's juvenile cast is shaky. The film captures the dread and paranoia of the Cold War era, but I found it to be a painfully earnest and thin anti-nuke screed.