2020 - March
RANKING ALL FILMS:
01. Wild Tales (2014) 4/4
02. Cure (1997) 4/4
03. Corpus Christi (2019) 4/4
04. Top Secret (1998) 4/4
05. Memories of Murder (2003) 4/4
06. Always Shine (2016) 4/4
07. Like Father, Like Son (2013) 3.5/4
08. Insomnia (1997) 3.5/4
09. Father (2020) 3.5/4
10. Smooth Talk (1985) 3.5/4
11. Black Christmas (1974) 3.5/4
12. Pulse (2001) 3.5/4
13. Green (2011) 3.5/4
14. Intimacy (2001) 3/4
15. Guest of Honour (2019) 3/4
16. Boy Missing (2016) 3/4
17. Insomnia (2002) 3/4
18. The Invisible Man (2020) 3/4
19. An Officer and a Spy (2019) 3/4
20. Shutter (2004) 3/4
21. The Body (2012) 3/4
22. The Invisible Guest (2016) 2.5/4
23. New Year, New You (2018) 2.5/4
24. 93 Days (2016) 2/4
25. Mirage (2018) 2/4
26. Black Christmas (2019) 1.5/4
27. Black Christmas (2006) 1.5/4
28. When the Bough Breaks (1994) 1/4
01. Wild Tales (2014) 4/4
02. Cure (1997) 4/4
03. Corpus Christi (2019) 4/4
04. Top Secret (1998) 4/4
05. Memories of Murder (2003) 4/4
06. Always Shine (2016) 4/4
07. Like Father, Like Son (2013) 3.5/4
08. Insomnia (1997) 3.5/4
09. Father (2020) 3.5/4
10. Smooth Talk (1985) 3.5/4
11. Black Christmas (1974) 3.5/4
12. Pulse (2001) 3.5/4
13. Green (2011) 3.5/4
14. Intimacy (2001) 3/4
15. Guest of Honour (2019) 3/4
16. Boy Missing (2016) 3/4
17. Insomnia (2002) 3/4
18. The Invisible Man (2020) 3/4
19. An Officer and a Spy (2019) 3/4
20. Shutter (2004) 3/4
21. The Body (2012) 3/4
22. The Invisible Guest (2016) 2.5/4
23. New Year, New You (2018) 2.5/4
24. 93 Days (2016) 2/4
25. Mirage (2018) 2/4
26. Black Christmas (2019) 1.5/4
27. Black Christmas (2006) 1.5/4
28. When the Bough Breaks (1994) 1/4
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- DirectorBanjong PisanthanakunParkpoom WongpoomStarsAnanda EveringhamNatthaweeranuch ThongmeeAchita SikamanaA young photographer and his girlfriend discover mysterious shadows in their photographs after a tragic accident. They soon learn that you can not escape your past.01-03-2020
Tun (Ananda Everingham) is a photographer living happily in Bangkok with his girlfriend Jane (Natthaweeranuch Thongmee). One night, returning home from a drunken college reunion, Tun and Jane hit a woman in white with their car and run away. Jane is obviously troubled by the accident but Tun's mind seems to be elsewhere as a mysterious white light begins appearing on all the photos he takes. His investigation leads him first to a sleazy magazine editor (Apichart Chusakul) who muses on the sentimentality of ghosts who long to be with their loved ones just a little bit longer before offering to buy the photos and then to his old college sweetheart, the shy and depressed Natre (Achita Sikamana) who committed suicide some months ago. As the apparitions begin crossing over from the photos to the real world and haunting Tun and Jane wherever they go, Tun's other college friends begin committing suicide one by one forcing him to uncover the mysteries of the past before falling victim to this vengeful ghost himself.
This is the plot of "Shutter", an obvious Thai take on the J-horror craze sweeping the film world in the early 2000s. The similarities are immediately striking from the vengeful ghostly apparitions to the addition of sinister connotations to modern technology, but this didn't detract from my viewing pleasure in the least because the premise (although derivative) is captivating and nicely rounded and the set-pieces (although predictable) are very well executed.
The directing writing team of Banjong Pisanthanakun and Parkpoom Wongpoom do a great job setting up each scare and then paying it off with a neat little twist. For instance, in one scene Tun is alone in his darkroom developing photos. Jane walks in and looks over his shoulder. "You're early," Tun responds before Jane's response is cut off by a ringing telephone. Tun picks it up. "Hey, it's Jane, I'll be late," says Jane on the other side of the phone. Sure this is predictable and a little corny but it is carried out with such assurance and skill that it actually worked.
The set-pieces are uniformly great from the short cutaway to cameras taking photos by themselves to an elaborate and well-shot chase on the side of a building which is easily the high point of the film. Also very enjoyable is a brief but witty sequence in a public toilet in which Tun seems to get a ghostly visit at the most inconvenient possible time. I very much enjoyed this comical twist on an age-old cliche.
One problem I did have with "Shutter" is that the film is structured out of nothing but set-pieces. It is a collection of scary sequences with very little to no time in between for us to truly get to know the characters or have time to piece together all the clues. The relentless pace that is a side-effect of a such a structure becomes a little wearisome by the end and I would have liked a little breather room for the plot and characters to develop.
This is not to say "Shutter" is a shallow film. It's not. The two leads are likeable and believable in their parts, the twists which come in thick and fast are intriguing and always push the film in a different direction, and the final revelation, when it comes, packs quite an emotional wallop which only proves that we have managed to come to care for these people even if we don't really know them.
I also must praise the plot which deftly and sensitively weaves together subjects of bullying and even sexual abuse in stark contrast to this film's J-horror progenitors who tended to simply use these topics as easy motivations or plot points. It also more-or-less makes sense which is high praise indeed for the Asian horror subgenre.
"Shutter" never reaches the atmospheric highs of J-horror, but it has an involving and well-written plot, likeable performances, and a number of superbly executed set-pieces. I was never scared of its ghosts but by the end, I was thoroughly entertained, engrossed, and a little sad. Dexterous if not groundbreaking.
3/4 - DirectorKiyoshi KurosawaStarsHaruhiko KatôKumiko AsôKoyukiTwo groups of people discover evidence that suggests spirits may be trying to invade the human world through the Internet.02-03-2020
"Pulse" is the strangest J-horror film I've ever seen and anyone expecting another movie in the long line of "Rings", "Grudges", and "One Missed Calls" will be bitterly disappointed. It is a quiet, thoughtful, and utterly chilling rumination on society, isolation, alienation, and depression from Kiyoshi Kurosawa, one of Japan's most original and interesting auteurs known for his deliberately paced films and unusual visual style.
And indeed it is the style of "Pulse" that gives us our first clue as to it not being your run-of-the-mill horror film. Kurosawa stages most of his scenes in long, unbroken takes with the camera barely or never moving. The characters are framed in such a way that they are far from the camera and us. He lets scenes run on even when everything of plot importance has been said and done. At first, this seems like just a quirk, an aesthetic choice, but in fact, what Kurosawa is going for here is a technique similar to that employed by Tarkovsky, most notably in "Sacrifice". By slowing the pace right down and not allowing us to get excited by or involved in the action of the plot, he exposes the emptiness and loneliness of his character's lives. He also forces us to watch the film with increased concentration as important moments and lines are not specially highlighted requiring us to recognise them and piece the story together. This visual style also allows him to execute some of the finest scares I've ever seen in a J-horror film such as the long, deliberately drawn-out scene in which a ghost in slow-motion approaches the camera. Another great scene involves one of the characters looking around his dead friend's apartment. He examines a mysterious dark spot on one of the walls. After he is finished he turns out the light and goes to leave. Then he stops. He slowly turns around and switches the light back on. Where the spot was now his dead friend is standing. The scene is so startling and memorable precisely because Kurosawa never cuts or lets us look away. He never reveals the sleight of hand and it works majestically.
The film focuses on a large group of students living basically empty lives. They go to campus, then to work, and then home where they stare at their computer screens until they fall asleep. One of them creates a perfect computer simulation of life. It involves two dots which die when they get too close, but if they get too far apart, they get drawn closer. People around them are disappearing and committing suicide, but they seem not to care too much. One of them actually witnesses a woman jump off a building, but she never mentions it again. That is until one of them disappears. Michi (Kumiko Asô), his co-worker goes to investigate and finds the poor man despondent, obviously depressed. She tries to help him but he casually makes a noose and hangs himself right before her. Soon, others in their social circles start becoming depressed too. Michi's best friend Junko (Kurume Arisaka) is one of them. "Am I just going to die like this," she asks Michi. After Michi reassures her she won't die, she responds "Of course not. I'll just keep on living all alone."
The subject of which is worse, life or death, pops up often in "Pulse" but Kurosawa posits it as an insoluble question. The depressed students then begin disappearing or killing themselves. Junko disintegrates into nothing and is carried away by the wind as Michi watches on helplessly. The disappearances seem connected to mysterious doors taped shut by red tape appearing all over Tokyo. The depressed refer to them as "The Forbidden Rooms". What is inside these rooms and what is making these students so depressed? Or rather, what is it that makes them realise the emptiness and loneliness of the lives they are living? A significant clue lies in a brief exchange between computer scientist Harue (Koyuki) and an economics student Kawashima (Haruhiko Katô). She asks him why he got into computers and was it because he wanted to connect with other people. "People don't really connect, you know. Like those dots simulating humans. We all live totally separately."
This sense of isolation and sadness is similar to the one evoked by Hideo Nakata in "Ring" but unlike Nakata, Kurosawa builds a very thoughtful and intelligent film around the atmosphere. He is more philosophically inclined than Nakata and in this sense, he is much closer to, say, Jacques Rivette then John Carpenter. Like in Rivette's films, the plot and the characters in "Pulse" merely serve as thin disguises for Kurosawa's more metaphorical intentions. There is no true characterisation here and the students succumbing to the mysterious depression are not fleshed out. They exist only to serve Kurosawa's vision. Again, like Rivette, he also gets intentionally flat and unnatural performances from his actors. I didn't mind any of this in "Pulse" because it fits both with the overall atmosphere of the film and with the characters themselves who lead empty, insignificant lives.
Everything in "Pulse" seems designed to make us uncomfortable. The long takes which seem counterintuitive in a horror film, the unnatural performances. Kurosawa insists on artificiality throughout the film, a fact best evidenced by obviously expressionistic back projections. Even the score which is intrusively loud and often misplaced adds to the atmosphere of otherworldliness and oddness which permeates "Pulse". Everything in the film serves Kurosawa's vision and for that he must be applauded.
With all of that said, "Pulse" is a very hard film to review. It is intentionally odd and uninviting. You're not supposed to like it or enjoy it. It is oppressively melancholic, slow, and at times even wearisome. Kurosawa employs the Tarkovsky distancing effect which dictates that the audience must always be aware they're watching a film and must not be allowed to become engrossed in it so they can always be thinking about the overarching themes and symbolics of the film very well. Even too well. "Pulse" is a tough film to watch. But this is obviously Kurosawa's intention and I have to respect that. In that sense, "Pulse" works.
Where it fails, however, is its infuriating vagueness. Trying to understand it is often like trying to grasp air. Its messages and philosophy are more and more elusive as it progresses and its plot becomes more and more muddled and difficult to follow due to a build-up of unexplained phenomena and I have a feeling this wasn't Kurosawa's intention. He seems to have written himself into a corner with all the horror imagery such as the red taped doors, people turning into spots, and mysterious images of people staring into their computers. He obviously doesn't know how the plot fits together and has thus decided to simply not explain these phenomena or just forget about them midway through. This angered me somewhat as I truly invested myself in this film. For this reason, Kurosawa's storytelling abilities come across as sloppy which is sad for someone so skilled at crafting atmosphere and subtext.
I recommend "Pulse" on the strength of its artistic vision and powerful central message, but be warned, it is not an easy movie to watch or understand. Watching it sometimes feels like riding the world's slowest mechanical bull. It constantly tries to shake you off and trip you up with its slowness, its sadness, and its elliptical storytelling. But you will be rewarded if you hang on.
3.5/4 - DirectorKiyoshi KurosawaStarsMasato HagiwaraKoji YakushoTsuyoshi UjikiA frustrated detective deals with the case of several gruesome murders committed by people who have no recollection of what they've done.02-03-2020
Kiyoshi Kurosawa's unnerving "Cure" is frequently compared to David Fincher's "Seven", a comparison I frankly find somewhat baffling. Besides a certain visual similarity and unflinching shots of graphic violence, the two films stand completely apart. The only other similarity I can find is that they both feature a policeman at the edge of becoming a criminal, teetering on the edge off of which he is about to be pushed by a mysterious mastermind. But this trope is so common in thrillers we might as well compare "Cure" not to "Seven" but to, say, any Friedrich Durrenmatt story from "The Pledge" to "The Judge and His Hangman". Kiyoshi Kurosawa's film replaces the fierce narrative propulsion of "Seven" with almost absolute narrative stagnation. Each of the three acts of "Cure" function separately largely because none of them features any kind of narrative progress. The status quo exists until it is suddenly broken. In act one, the status quo is a double game of cat-and-mouse, between detective and killer, and killer and victim. Note how the detective never learns anything about the killer in this act. In act two, it is again a game of cat and mouse but this time the killer's victim is the detective. Finally, in act three, the killer becomes, in essence, his own victim. Each of these acts is kind of like a play of its own in which a situation is quickly set-up and then we spend the rest of it eagerly anticipating for the situation to change. Everything in between is tension. Seen that way, "Cure" gains a curiously Pinteresque note, a quality that "Seven" does not possess.
The film is a serial killer manhunt thriller but with a very unusual twist. The serial killer acts through other people. We are introduced to the mechanics of this in a superb sequence early on in the film. Hanaoka (Masahiro Toda) is sitting on a beach staring out at sea. His meditation is interrupted by a stumbling, dazed hobo in a trenchcoat (Masato Hagiwara) asking non-sequitur questions. "Where is this?" "Shirasato Beach," Hanaoka replies. "Where?" "Shirasato Beach". "Where is that" "In Chiba". "What's the date?" "February 26th". "Where is this?" "I already told you". "When" "Just over there". The man continually repeats himself as he stumbles around the sand dunes of the beach. He is suffering from short term memory loss and seems helpless but there's something sinister about him. Hanaoka takes him home where he discovers from a label on his shirt that his name is Mamiya. "Let's call the police", Hanaoka suggests. "No. No police," Mamiya calmly retorts, then comes the demand. "Let's talk some more". Mamiya begins asking Hanaoka personal questions. "Where's your wife?" "Upstairs. She has a cold." "Who's that?" "My wife." And through a series of leading questions and repetitions, he seems to hypnotise the poor man. Then he asks again "How's your wife" before adding "The one in the pink negligee". "You saw her," asks Hanaoka shocked. "No," responds Mamiya, "you did." Then he takes a lighter out of his pocket and Hanaoka looks at the flame. "Tell me more about your wife." In the very next shot, the wife is dead. Hanaoka has sliced her neck open and thrown himself out of the window and Mamiya is nowhere to be seen.
This is only one in a series of murders investigated by detective Takabe (Kôji Yakusho), murders recognisable for the Xs carved in their victim's necks and for the killers waiting calmly for the police before confessing to the crimes. Takabe suspects there's a hypnotist at work but his sidekick, psychiatrist Sakuma (Tsuyoshi Ujiki) dismisses the notion. "Even if you manage to hypnotize someone you can't change their basic moral sense. A person who thinks murder is evil won't kill anyone under hypnotic suggestion. The hypnotist must be a genius."
Kurosawa insists on contrasts throughout the film and one of the very best ones we see is how the hunter and the hunted get what they need. In one sequence, we see Mamiya hypnotise another of his victims, the good-natured police officer Oida (Denden) annoyed by his goody-two-shoes partner. It is a slow, drawn-out sequence in which Mamiya carefully gets the man's attention before starting his hypnotic game with a series of personal questions. Then out comes the lighter. In a later scene, Takabe interrogates Oida. He wants to know if he'd spoken to someone before he killed his partner. He grabs Oida's neck and pushes his head down to the desk. Then he forces a light into his eyes and asks and asks until Oida finally breaks down.
Mamiya is a highly unusual villain in that he helps those he hurts. He "cures" their inner inhibitions. Take, for instance, the character of Akiko (Yoriko Dôguchi), a cold, distant GP who all her life wanted to be a surgeon but buckled at the knees in the last minute. She was too afraid to cut a man open. After a brief (but unbearably tense) meeting with Mamiya, she goes down to a public toilet and cuts a stranger up. Her coldness and tension are replaced by an eery calmness which characterises all of Mamiya's victims. Harking back to what Sakuma said earlier, Mamiya doesn't convince people to do anything they don't want to do, he makes them do that which they've desired to do for a very long time and in that releases all that pent-up anger and pain from deep within them. After he kills his wife, Hanaoka's pensive staring into the depths of the sea is replaced by a calmed blankness.
Eventually, Mamiya is caught and this brings him head to head with Takabe. Mamiya targets Takabe like he does all his other victims. Intrusive personal questions, repetition, the lighter, but it doesn't work. Mamiya is fascinated, what is it that Takabe wants. The most obvious answer would be to get rid of his mentally ill wife (Anna Nakagawa). "Is it hard to be a detective with a crazy wife", pushes Mamiya. But it seems Takabe truly cares for her. He indulges her constant fantasy that they're preparing to go on holiday. Also, when Mamiya makes him briefly think she's dead, he rushes home and collapses in tears before her when he sees her alive. Takabe thus becomes a true puzzle for Mamiya before he realises he's not to be his victim, but something else, something he didn't expect. The clue for this lies in a brilliant exchange with Takabe's stuffy boss Fujiwara (Ren Osugi). "Who are you", asks Mamiya. "Fujiwara from the Headquarters", retorts Fujiwara, his back as straight as an arrow. Mamiya looks at him. "Who are you?" "Fujiwara. Headquarters." "Who?" Fujiwara's had enough. "Are you being smart?" But Mamiya's not to be outdone. "Who are you?" Defeated, Fujiwara turns to his underling. "Takabe, what's wrong with this man?" Mamiya is not having any of it. "I'm asking who you are." "Fujiwara of Headquarters!" he shouts. "Who are you?" asks Mamiya again. Fujiwara, seeming to grasp the implication of the question looks at Mamiya helplessly. "What exactly do you mean?" he asks. Mamiya's brilliant reply cuts at the heart of the matter. "You think about that."
To contextualise "Cure" by saying it came out two years after "Seven" is wrong. The right look at "Cure" is to see it as coming out two years after the Aum terrorist attack in Tokyo when a cult released a dangerous toxin in the underground railway of Japan's capital. Unexpectedly, all of the culprits were successful, educated, seemingly well-adjusted people, not lunatics. What made them do it? What reached out and removed them from the seeming comfort of their middle-class lives and made them become instruments of chaos? The Aum attack is now seen as the first sign of the end of Japan's golden era of meteoric social and economic rise. "Cure" puts forward a different idea. That comfortable people aren't happy people and that their comfort is merely a symptom of deep repression. This is where Mamiya comes in. If his victims are instruments of chaos, he is the conductor. The unwanted visitor who exposes his victim's deep seethed desires and makes them act upon them.
Kiyoshi Kurosawa imposes an atmosphere of strong concentration and eager anticipation on his film's audience. The aforementioned interrogation scene between Takabe and Oida is shot in an unbroken six-minute take and is only one of many such scenes in "Cure". Kurosawa places his camera far from the action but then makes it watch unflinchingly from its position. He makes us, the audience, do all the work. Identify the important lines, the plot-driving actions, pieces of information which will become important later on. He doesn't guide us through "Cure" by highlighting that which we should pay attention to. He expects us to wade through its murky waters all on our own. His command of camera movement and use of spaces is masterly. Mamiya's victims are shot in wide-open, often derelict spaces. They have ample room to run but they don't. They're mysteriously drawn towards Mamiya, not repelled by him. In contrast, the scenes between Mamiya and Takabe are shot in cramped cells. "You can't get out of here," says Takabe. "You're the one who wants out," answers Mamiya. Either way, there's no escaping each other. They're locked in combat, the two of them, and no matter how much they flail around and evade each other, their conflict is inevitable.
"Cure's" success also rests on the brilliance of its performances. From Mamiya's dazed victims to our protagonists they are pitch-perfect. Kurosawa regular Kôji Yakusho fits the angry detective stereotype brilliantly but then neatly subverts it by showing how much he cares for his wife. But it is Masato Hagiwara in the role of the enigmatic Mamiya who is the real marvel here. I was taken aback by how quickly his confusion turns into malicious intent. How quickly his helplessness can turn to malevolence. His droning voice and thousand-mile stare truly are hypnotic. He also manages to imbue Mamiya with a profound sense of otherness. Like he knows a joke no one else does. Like there's more to him then we'll ever know. As there is.
"Cure" is Kiyoshi Kurosawa's masterpiece. There's hardly room left to grow after a film this philosophically intense. From its technical mastery to its subtextual richness, "Cure" is a thriller like no other.
4/4 - DirectorMichael CohnStarsAlly WalkerMartin SheenRon PerlmanPolice detectives investigate the apparent serial killing of several children after finding severed hands.04-03-2020
In the 1950s, musicologist Joseph Kerman called Puccini's "Tosca" a "shabby little shocker". Even though Kerman was wrong at the time, his slickly memorable turn of phrase fits "When the Bough Breaks" like a bespoke suit. This "Silence of the Lambs" cash-in is nothing but shabby with its deeply unconvincing performances, dull plot, and made-for-TV aesthetics.
The plot nominally revolves around the hunt for a serial killer after a bag full of children's hands is found in a sewer, but it is merely an excuse to lump all kinds of serial killer cliches together into a single, easily marketable movie. The film's producers, however, were far too optimistic about its chances and even though it was obviously made for TV they hastily tried to release it as a theatrical film. No one was dumb enough to pick it up and it died a quick death on video.
Let us consider all the plot strands of "When the Bough Breaks". Our lead is one Audrey Macleah (Ally Walker), a profiler sent to Texas to investigate the bag full of hands. She is a woman in a man's job and in a scene right before her arrival, the local cops begrudge her being called in. "Why's she coming," asks one. "To save us from ourselves," decides the other. They throw around casually sexist remarks and dismiss her job as some psycho mumbo-jumbo, but when she does eventually arrive nothing more is made of this. Everyone is perfectly nice to her, believe her theories, and do everything she tells them to. They even refer to her as ma'am. This is symptomatic of this film's tendency to build-up a plot and then forget all about it. In a way, this ends up happening to the film's main plotline which involves a boy in a mental hospital named Jordan (Tara Subkoff) who is somehow involved in the murders. He's drawing hands on the walls of his cell and numbering them just like the hands found in the bag. Audrey goes down to the hospital and is taken to the asylum's basement where Jordan lives in a sequence which is such an obvious rip-off of the famous meeting Hannibal Lecter sequence from "Silence of the Lambs" it's almost self-parodic. Why Jordan is kept segregated from the other patients is never explained. He seems quite calm and more interested in drawing hands on walls then hurting anyone. Audrey becomes interested in Jordan and the two develop a friendship but nothing really comes from this plotline. All the information Audrey needs to get about the serial killer she ends up getting from computer databases and old hospital records. The repeated visits to Jordan and their bonding experience leads exactly nowhere and ends up feeling like a waste of time. Another such dropped plotline is the mysterious marks on Audrey's back. In an early scene in the film, as she's preparing to go to sleep, she takes her shirt off and we see she has some sort of scars on her back which are then promptly forgotten about. Whether this was a misguided attempt to hint at some kind of childhood trauma or simply the leftovers of a deleted subplot I don't know, but they, again, serve no purpose in the film, especially not towards giving Audrey any character development.
Speaking of Audrey, her character is deeply problematic. Not only does she lack any kind of characterisation (after spending 90 minutes watching her I know not a thing about her), she's also one of the most unconvincing movie cops I've ever seen. Ally Walker fails to imbue her with any sense of professionalism or drive and her natural lack of charisma fails to make this boring character relatable or interesting. On the movie's poster, her face is relegated to hiding in the shadows behind Martin Sheen and despite clearly being the film's main character (there are very few scenes without her in the movie) that's precisely where she belongs. Minutes after the credits rolled I could hardly remember her face let alone the character she played.
The rest of the cast do a competent if very unimpressive job. Martin Sheen has a small role as the Texas police chief who is overseeing the investigation. Conventions are broken in this case as he's not presented as either unreasonable or angry. He patiently listens to all of Audrey's theories and always seems to say and do just the right thing. This, however, makes him a hopelessly dull character as he's no threat to Audrey and is in the grander scheme of things an unnecessary character. If you were to cut his scenes from the film no one would notice his absence. Ron Perlman also pops up in the film's final 15 minutes to give a very unimaginative turn as the film's psycho killer, but considering the entire final sequence is lifted wholesale from the finale of "Silence of the Lambs" I can't blame him.
The film listlessly directed by Michael Cohn without any sense of style or suspense limps along to its disappointing conclusion at an uneven pace. With its endless shots of people driving or walking up to front doors or walking away from front doors, "When the Bough Breaks" sometimes feels padded only for many key sequences to feel rushed. The ending, in particular, goes by so quickly that you are bound to miss how all the plot points tie in together. But even if you do, you're not missing much. "When the Bough Breaks" is a film without qualities. It squanders the few talented actors it has in its cast on thinly drawn characters and wastes 90-minutes of our lives on rehashing every serial killer cliche you can think of. It is never suspenseful, memorable, or in any way original. It is, however, most definitely a waste of time.
1/4 - DirectorAtom EgoyanStarsLaysla De OliveiraLuke WilsonDavid ThewlisVeronica wants to remain in jail for a sexual assault she knows she's been wrongfully indicted for. She and her father, Jim, find themselves acting out of the bounds of good behavior as the past haunts them.04-03-2020
"Guest of Honour" introduces its main character, pernickety hygiene inspector Jim (David Thewlis) with a shot so clever and indicative and yet simple that I was immediately reassured of being in the hands of a master filmmaker. Namely, he is sitting in a restaurant about to enjoy his meal after a long working day. He is tired but still looking forward to his dinner. He observes it appreciatively when something catches his eye. With the care of a forensic technician extracting a key piece of evidence from a fresh corpse, he reaches down into his meal and pulls out a white hair. And yet the exchange with the restaurant employee immediately following the scene reveals unexpected humanity in this bespectacled, besuited stickler for the rules. "You're not wearing a hairnet," he complains. The employee, a college-age girl, brushes him off with a look. "All food service employees are obligated to wear a hairnet," he continues in a louder voice. When she ignores him again, he shows her his hygiene inspector ID. Seeing fear in her eyes, however, takes him aback a little. "Don't worry," he says, "I'm not on duty" and proceeds to warn her that he'll be back.
Therein lies one of the many complexities of Jim. A man who is a stickler for the rules, logical, seemingly humourless, but who also has a lot of hidden empathy towards the people he inspects. He is willing to give second chances to those he feels simply made a mistake just as much as he is ruthless towards those whose mistakes are systematic abuses of the rules towards their own gains. And yet, just as his work life is ordered, Jim's private life is a mess. His beloved wife (Tennille Read) died some fifteen years ago leaving him with a small daughter to look after a daughter who is now all grown up and serving a sentence in prison. All alone at home, with only a rabbit to keep him company, Jim indulges in the only warmth he has left in life, memories. He spends his time watching videos of family life and fondly remembering the happiness he once had.
He also spends time visiting his daughter Veronica (Laysla De Oliveira) in prison. Once a music teacher, she was convicted of having sex with two of her students on a field trip and is at present locked up. When Jim comes to visit they seem to only talk about the past and the rabbit. As if trying very hard indeed to ignore all the elephants in the room with them. The first time we hear them talk about the present is when Jim asks if she's applied for early release. "I don't want to get out early," responds Veronica. Burdened with a deep sense of guilt for everything that's happened to her, from her mother's death to the abuse of power she was convicted for, Veronica is trying to give retribution by punishing herself in prison.
Everything, from Jim's happiness to Veronica's guilt, in "Guest of Honour" stems from the past. In fact, it seems to stem from the very same memories. Among them is Veronica's first piano concert which is also the last concert her ailing mother attended. Veronica's piano teacher Alicia (Sochi Fried) was also there and Veronica swears she saw her holding hands with Jim, a fact he denies. And this is, I believe, the central theme of "Guest of Honour". Layers of meaning. For Veronica, Jim holding hands with Alicia meant betrayal of her mother. For Jim, it might have meant something completely different. The idea of different meanings of actions stretches throughout the film, from Jim's interpretations of restauranteurs' rulebreaking to the extended flashback to Veronica's ill-fated school trip. It is perfectly illustrated in the fabulous sequence which gives the film its name. Jim, in a characteristic moment of empathy, agrees to let an Armenian restaurateur (Arsinee Khanjian) off the hook after she tells him that the unprepared rabbits she is cooking against the rules are for a private party and not to be served in the restaurant. Jim shows up at the private party to check up on her and she gives a speech about Jim in Armenian which is far less complimentary than he believes.
At the heart of "Guest of Honour", however, are Veronica and Jim, two flawed characters and the film is a tender yet witty examination of how they got that way. Atom Egoyan directs the film in his usual no-fuss manner allowing the stories and the characters to unfold before you unencumbered by any effects or grandstanding. I for one found simply observing these two immensely enjoyable. The turbulent emotional paths Egoyan takes them on are especially interesting as Jim takes drastic measures to find a way to be close to his daughter who continually rejects him on the basis of a memory from fifteen years ago which might as easily be completely false. Her misguided sense of guilt, on the other hand, leads to a string of bad luck and we'll not sure until the very end whether she'll be able to get out of it.
"Guest of Honour" benefits greatly from featuring two excellent performances at its heart. David Thewlis, at the worst of times a reliable performer, manages to make Jim a truly likeable and relatable character. Someone who's misguided actions we can understand and even identify with. Laysla De Oliveira is, however, the real discovery in this film, someone I had never seen on screen before and who is the real heart of this film. De Oliveira really manages to sell the downward spiral Veronica finds herself on, the spiral which leads her from a beloved music teacher who finds freedom and happiness in conducting the school orchestra to an embittered, self-hating convict unable to grasp the truth about the past. They are terrific.
Now, "Guest of Honour" has its fair share of problems and all of them stem from the script. Full of coincidences very hard to accept at face value it was often trying on my sense for disbelief. It is also often needlessly convoluted and hampered by an occasional overcooked moment (like the one in which Veronica suffers some sort of a nervous breakdown from the sight of a shower cabin). Another problem is that certain events aren't examined in enough detail. The prime of these events is the relationship Veronica has with her childhood friend Walter (Gage Munroe) and his eventual suicide both of which are dealt with in a surprisingly offhanded manner. I also wish more time was given to the character of Jim's wife, Veronica's mother, who appears far too little for a character of such importance to the story.
Never-the-less, I did enjoy "Guest of Honour". Like I said, I was fascinated by the characters and what they were going through and I thought the central performances were excellent. Also superb is Egoyan's use of music and his no-fuss visual style which achieves beauty and ugliness when needed without any exaggerations. If only the screenplay had been better we could have had a truly great picture. But as I left the theatre, I realised one important thing. I'd rather watch an OK Atom Egoyan film than even a great Hollywood slam-banger and that's something.
3/4 - DirectorRoman PolanskiStarsLouis GarrelChristophe MaratierPierre PoirotIn 1894, French Captain Alfred Dreyfus is wrongfully convicted of treason and sentenced to life imprisonment at Devil's island.06-03-2020
"An Officer and a Spy" is Roman Polanski's take on the Dreyfus Affair, the 19th-century scandal which saw an innocent man put to trial and imprisoned for spying by the army who then tried to cover up their mistake until they were exposed by their own security chief. It is one of several films based on the subject previously tackled by such directors as Abel Gance, Jose Ferrer and Ken Russell. What Polanski brings to the story is his technical expertise and a healthy dose of humour which makes this an enjoyable film even if it fails to rise to the ranks of Polanski's best.
Watching "An Officer and a Spy" I felt I was getting two films for the price of one. The first one, and the one which works best, is a Forman-meets-Kafka-type satire about all the hoops security chief colonel Picquart (Jean Dujardin) has to jump through in order to prove Alfred Dreyfus (Louis Garrel) is innocent and all the drunken, diseased, proud, and otherwise idiotic superior officers who stand in his way. A very funny scene early on in the film involves Picquart, who's only just been promoted, coming to visit his ailing predecessor Sandherr (Eric Ruf). Shaking with fever, boils on his face, the syphilis-ridden colonel proceeds to give a lecture on the values of the French society which he finishes with the absurdly hypocritical statement that he is "worried about the decline of cultural and artistic standards in France". Another very funny scene has an overly excited general (Wladimir Yordanoff) preparing to "face Dreyfus with the evidence" by staging a complicated (and utterly farcical) sting operation in his office like an amateur Hercule Poirot. Scenes such as these, of which are many, were very effective both in portraying the context within which the story takes place (an anti-semitic and patriotic environment full of aged paranoiacs) and commenting on the absurdity of show trials and witch hunts which is what makes it a very timely released indeed.
Less exciting are the film's historical portions which mainly focus on the various trials Dreyfus had to endure before finally being exonerated. Worryingly large portions of "An Officer and a Spy" feel less like a film and more like a history lesson. Entire sequences are devoted to fairly dry accounts of who did what and why, endless legal wranglings, discussions on army matters etc. etc. All this information is, admittedly, important for the film but Polanski's exposition is often way too obvious and given in chunks too large to comfortably ingest. There are a few too many meetings in drab rooms, readings of newspaper articles and covert telegrams. Too much time is dedicated to Picquart personally recounting all the details already laid out in previous scenes to each and every general in the film (and there are a fair few). And a lot of plot points Polanski gives attention to eventually go nowhere. He makes a big deal of General Gonse (Hervé Pierre) not being told of Picquart's investigation, but once he is told nothing is made of it. In fact, his involvement in the film ends up being fairly minor. A big deal is also made of Sandherr giving Picquart a bag full of cash. I expected that the money would, at some point, come back, perhaps in an ironic fashion with Picquart using the state's money to fight against the state, but no such thing happened. At one point in the film, Picquart is told to pack up and go to Africa, in the very next scene he's back and no further mention of it is made. Why is it in the film? It's historically accurate, I'll give you that, but it serves no storytelling purpose and is neither interesting nor exciting. More frustratingly, Polanski doesn't put any kind of a spin on these scenes. They are merely informative and are recreated on-screen with the veracity of a master forger. In other words, Polanski spends too much time recounting history rather than interpreting which is, I believe, the role of any historical feature film. "An Officer and a Spy" is, after all, not a documentary.
On a personal level, the only fully fleshed-out character is Picquart, but I was fine with that. This is the story of his fight to free Dreyfus. The other characters are either fulfilling their historic roles and serve the plot in that way (such as Emile Zola) or are mercilessly satirised as representatives of their respective Kafkian organisations (such as the generals). The one character I didn't fully understand is Pauline (Emmanuelle Seigner), Picquart's married lover and the star of a subplot which is entirely superfluous. She pops up every half-an-hour or so to parade the screen in a neglige but plays no role in the plot (she is entirely fictional) nor does she particularly humanise Picquart. The scenes between them feature some nice dialogue and are well-acted but feel out of place in what is otherwise a historical thriller.
Also deeply personal is Polanski's critique of antisemitism which played a great part in convicting Dreyfus (who was Jewish). He doesn't flinch in portraying the complete bigotry and xenophobia of the French ruling class but what I liked was that he didn't flinch in portraying the bigotry and xenophobia of the characters we're supposed to root for either. Picquart is first introduced noting that Dreyfus looks like a "Jewish moneylender crying over lost gold" and later on frequently remarks on his hatred of Jews and dislike of Dreyfus. His efforts and self-sacrifice to prove him innocent have nothing to do with Dreyfus himself or even his sense of injustice but rather him idealising the Army and holding to a code of honour which never truly existed. "I am serving the Army by telling the truth, not by blind obedience," he says at one point. In another, he is confronted by a fellow soldier who tells him to keep his head down and follow orders. "That is the Army," he tells him. Picquart responds "That's your Army. Not mine." Indeed, more could have been done with this and the duality of Picquart could have been better explored but I enjoyed the fact Polanski wasn't afraid to make him unlikeable.
Polanski proves himself to be a master filmmaker by managing to weave all these disparate films into a cohesive one. "An Officer and a Spy" occasionally stumbles on a long-winded history lesson but actually works overall. I admired it primarily as a technical achievement. The editing in the film by Hervé de Luze is superb, as is the camerawork. In his traditional no-fuss directing style, Polanski manages to bring out the dynamics of most of the scenes without resorting to cut-cut-cutting every second or wildly waving the camera around the room. He remains throughout the film both elegant and economical a filmmaker. Particularly exciting is the duel scene which is possibly the finest swordfight I've seen in a film since Ridley Scott's "The Duellists". I was slightly less impressed with Pawel Edelman's cinematography which was unimaginative but perfectly serviceable. Finally, Alexandre Desplat delivers again a wonderful score in the form of an insistent, pounding march-rhythm baseline overlaid with melodic string portions. It is marvellously displayed in an extended montage sequence featuring all the generals reading an article pointed against them.
The acting too is top-notch. As always, Jean Dujardin proves a charming and engaging lead and he is well supported by an array of French character actors giving superb comedic performances with compelling dramatic turns. Grégory Gadebois as Picquart's immediate subordinate Major Henry particularly impresses with his performance as a "good soldier" who does whatever he is told without question. "If you ask me to kill a man, I'll do it," he tells Picquart. The only weak link is Louis Garrel in the role of Dreyfus. He plays him as a weak, shivering man and fails to find any layers in his role. It is hard not to sympathise with his plight but as a character, he is totally uninteresting. In the film's final third, when Dreyfus is supposed to have aged due to his ordeal Garrel is failed by the make-up department and ends up parading on screen looking like someone's thrown flour over his unconvincing bald-cap which makes his performance seem even weaker.
"An Officer and a Spy" is a clever and entertaining historical account of the Dreyfus Affair, but I wish it rose above it whether through satire or serious contemplation of the complexities of the story. With more attitude and dramatisation and fewer history lessons, Polanski could have pulled it off. He gets close but doesn't earn the cigar. Still, it is a handsome, admirable piece of filmmaking which excited me and made me laugh though it wasn't nearly as poignant as it wished to be.
3/4 - DirectorErik SkjoldbjærgStarsStellan SkarsgårdSverre Anker OusdalMaria MathiesenIn a Norwegian city with a 24-hour daylight cycle a Swedish murder investigator has been brought in on a special case. Sleep deprived, he makes a horrible mistake which is discovered by the killer he has been hunting.07-03-2020
"Insomnia" begins like your standard fish-out-of-water thriller. A nude corpse of a young girl is discovered in a small Norwegian town above the Arctic Circle. Doubting the ability of the small-town cops to handle the case, the chief of police (Frode Rasmussen) has two big town homicide detective come down and investigate. The cops are Jonas (Stellan Skarsgård), tall and brooding, and Vik (Sverre Anker Ousdal), stocky and gregarious. While Vik seems to make friends wherever he goes, Jonas feels less at home. Haunted by a scandal from a few years ago when he was caught having "private conversations" with a confidential informant, he's stand-offish, dour, and often rude. Contributing to his bad mood is the midnight sun which never goes down and disrupts his sleeping.
Two big breaks come in the case one by one. The first one in the form of the victim's handbag found in a beachside cabin. The second from the victim's school friend Frøya (Marianne O. Ulrichsen) who informs the police that the victim was in a relationship with Jon Holt (Bjørn Floberg), a reclusive mystery writer living in the town. Jonas and Vik set up a trap for the killer by announcing on the news that they are looking for the handbag then lying in wait for the killer to come and get it. This is where the film gets interesting.
During the stakeout, a heavy fog descends on the beach. Never-the-less, the cops manage to make out a figure of a man approaching the cabin. They can't see his face, so they decide to come closer. In a moment of carelessness, one of them kicks a water bottle which breaks and alerts the man who then runs into the cabin. Thinking they've cornered him, the cops leisurely walk to the cabin only to discover a door in the floor leading to a passageway. The killer's getting away. Jonas and Vik give chase but the killer shoots at them. They separate and a foot chase ensues through the heavy fog. Unable to see where he's going, Jonas runs half-blind tripping and falling over rocks. The killer, equally blind, shoots at him repeatedly missing but still disorienting the already sleep-deprived Jonas. Regaining his footing on the sandy part of the beach, Jonas makes out the form of the killer running towards him. He shouts at him to stop. The killer doesn't. Then Jonas shoots and the killer falls. Except it's not the killer. Jonas has just shot his partner who dies in his arms.
This is where "Insomnia" inverts the manhunt thriller formula it's built up over the past 30-or-so minutes. Jonas, panicked and confused, makes up a story about stumbling onto Vik's body. In a desperate bid to cover his tracks, his actions become more and more questionable. He lies to his colleagues, then he realises the bullet extracted from Vik's body will be traced back to him. Remembering a gun he found during the foot chase through the fog he uses it to kill a stray dog, digs the bullet out of its corpse and replaces it for the one found in Vik.
Then the real killer shows up. Realising what's happened, Holt confronts Jonas. In a scene reminiscent of "The Third Man", Holt explains to Jonas that if he goes down, Jonas goes down. The two collude to frame an innocent party, the victim's boyfriend Eilert (Bjørn Moan), except Jonas is not an innocent man being blackmailed. Sure, him shooting his partner was an honest mistake. In the fog, he had no way of knowing he was shooting at Vik and not the killer. But, every subsequent action makes Jonas less and less relatable until he more or less masterminds the framing of Eilert all on his own. In a clever inversion of the brooding detective trope, Jonas indeed is just as shady as he appears. Troubled by his mistakes but not reluctant to repeat them, he struggles with his conscience by suppressing it which he accomplishes by never stopping. Jonas is always moving, always in action, except when he tries to sleep. This is when his demons come to call and this is when he can't ignore them. He blames the midnight sun on his sleeplessness but we know something more is wrong with Jonas. We know it from the very first moment we meet him. This is what separates "Insomnia" from every other Nordic Noir thriller that's come after it. It is not a whodunnit or an action thriller, it is instead a bleak psychological musing on the conscience of a man sliding deeper and deeper into frantic immorality until we eventually begin asking ourselves who's worse, Jonas or the killer he's hunting.
Of course, Holt is only nominally Jonas' nemesis. His real problem is detective Hagen (Gisken Armand), a local cop in charge of investigating Vik's death. She, like us, senses Jonas' inner darkness and suspects his story from the go. Straight-laced and razor-sharp, she methodically investigates every one of Jonas' claims and her relentless pursuit of the truth becomes what pushes him towards teaming up with his former enemy, Holt. Holt himself is also a fairly interesting character though not enough room is given to him in the film. Alternatively remorseful and gleefully deranged, he claims the girl's death was an accident even though its obvious his definition of an accident is fairly loose. Their relationship isn't explored in detail but the little bits and pieces of information we get on it tells us enough about Holt to piece together a picture of a disturbed, lonely man looking for affection in all the wrong ways.
"Insomnia's" strongest suit is its faithful recreation of the fragmentary nature of sleeplessness. The editing is intentionally jerky, full of jump cuts within the same shot, weird whip pans, and unnatural framing. Director Erik Skjoldbjærg focuses tightly on Skarsgård's sweaty and pasty white face and haunted eyes revealing his inner turmoil. Skarsgård is, as always, absolutely superb in the role, giving Jonas a neurotic edge whilst revealing his deeply introspective nature. We really get a sense that Jonas is aware of how wrong what he is doing is. He never tries to justify his actions and this is where his guilty conscience comes from. He knows he's bad, he doesn't like it, but he seems unable to stop himself. A corrupt cop is not necessarily an interesting character, nor is a morally righteous one. But a corrupt cop with an overly functional sense of right and wrong is fascinating.
I was less taken by the casting of Bjørn Floberg as Jon Holt. The character isn't fully fleshed out in the script and needed an actor like Skarsgård to fill out the gaps. Floberg tries but isn't successful. His brutish looks also don't help him making his come across less like a disturbed writer and more like a fisherman trying out for the part of Lenny in the local "Of Mice and Men" amateur production. Holt would have been a more effective character if like Jonas he was made a contradiction. Someone like Erland Josephson would have been an interesting choice, on the one hand, gently elegant and intellectual and on the other a disturbed killer. I also wish they'd played up his mourning of the death of his victim. It is present in hints but never directly addressed or examined. I know "Insomnia" isn't about him but it would have been a more interesting film if Holt was given some time to grow and become a less peripheral character.
On the other hand, "Insomnia" is a very tight film and you have to admire that. It gets its points across neatly and elegantly and never outstays its welcome. While I wish someone more philosophically inclined (like, say, Kiyoshi Kurosawa) had gotten his hands on this material and further examined the ethical and moral connotations of Jonas' actions, Skjoldbjærg's purely psychological approach intrigued me and kept my attention for the full 95-minute runtime. Although flawed, "Insomnia" is a fascinating character study spearheaded by a superb performance from Stellan Skarsgård and featuring a well-executed nightmarish atmosphere. As an ambitiously clever twist on the thriller genre, "Insomnia" is a hard film not to admire.
3.5/4 - DirectorChristopher NolanStarsAl PacinoRobin WilliamsHilary SwankTwo Los Angeles homicide detectives are dispatched to a northern town where the sun doesn't set to investigate the methodical murder of a local teen.08-03-2020
To say superstar homicide detective Will Dormer (Al Pacino) is in trouble would be an understatement. He's just shot and killed his partner Hap (Martin Donovan) and decided to lay the blame on a murderer they've been hunting. But why? Hap's death was an honest mistake. While chasing the killer across a fog-bound Alaskan beach, Dormer shot at a gun-toting figure running towards him, mistaking his partner for the killer. Well, the problem is Dormer had a motive for wanting Hap dead. Internal affairs have been looking into a case the two of them investigated the year before and they've just compiled a compelling case showing that Dormer planted evidence on a suspected child killer with Hap as their star witness. Without Hap, Dormer's off the hook.
Happily for him, his story is believed. But Dormer is not as bad as his actions may lead us to believe. He's a good cop who's just played god one too many times and liked it. As another character says later on in the film, he only did that what he thought was right at the time, except he soon finds he can't live with his decisions. Haunted by his conscience, he can't sleep and in his sleepless state tries to make amends by finding the killer Hap and he were hunting.
At the beginning of the film, the two men are sent from LA to help catch the killer of a young girl found naked in a garbage dump of a small Alaskan town. But the killer soon presents himself voluntarily in the form of wanna-be crime writer Walter Finch (Robin Williams). Finch is no more a gleeful killer than Dormer but rather a lonely, disturbed man who couldn't take the rejection of the woman he genuinely liked. He's sorry about what happened and seeks out Dormer in a mistaken belief they can help each other deal with their consciences.
"Insomnia" is a remake of an interesting 1997 Norweigan thriller which worked hard to set itself up as a whodunit only to twist the form on its head. The killer reveals himself and the cop becomes a killer himself. This Hollywood version directed by Christopher Nolan keeps some semblance of a thriller formula by fundamentally changing the leading man. Jonas, the lead of the 1997 film, was a bad man with a conscience. Someone who was aware of the wrongness of his actions but did them anyway only to later be haunted by them when he goes to sleep. Dormer, on the other hand, is a more conventional protagonist. A good man gone astray. He does things he believes are right and only later realises he can't live with them. Both are interesting characters and played very well by their respective actors. Al Pacino in this film gives a performance of unusual subtlety for his later career. He also gives an exceedingly physical performance, slowly becoming more haggard and speaking with greater difficulty as his insomnia continues. I have to admit, however, I found Jonas a more compelling and original character even if Dormer's predicament is better fleshed out.
On the other hand, Walter presents an improvement over his 1997 counterpart Jon. Given a larger role, Walter becomes a more complex character and his interactions with Dormer are the high-points of the film. Robin Williams had a good year in 2002 and gave two superb dramatic performances one here and one in "One Hour Photo" playing disturbed yet strangely relatable characters in both. Even if he turns into a stock thriller villain in the film's decidedly disappointing action finale, Walter is as compelling a movie killer as I've seen in years.
Far better in the 1997 film is Jonas' true nemesis. A small-town cop assigned to investigate the death of his partner whom he hastily underestimates but who catches onto his lies fairly quickly and begins looking for the truth. In the remake, she is relegated to a smaller part and turned into a naive rookie named Ellie (Hilary Swank) who hero-worships Dormer and refuses to believe her own eyes until almost the beginning of the third act. She poses no real threat to him and except for playing a peripheral part in the finale could have easily been removed from the film.
Looked at on its own, "Insomnia" is a compelling thriller but one which also fails to break out of its formula. The character interactions are far more interesting than the thriller set-pieces but sadly a lot more time is given to Dormer trying to find a way to outsmart the killer rather than looking for a way to escape his conscience. This is not a quiet film and it should have been. Director Christopher Nolan imposes a fast pace and uncomfortably jerky editing (even before Dormer's insomnia kicks in) revealing a certain insecurity with the material. He is a lot more at home with the film's striking visuals (beautifully lensed by Wally Pfister) and two very well done foot chases but the quiet, personal moments seem to evade him. In several scenes, he even manages to undermine Pacino's otherwise good performance by cutting every couple of seconds and not giving his actors room to truly express themselves. I don't believe he was the right man for this material.
Still, this is a handsome thriller and a more interesting one than most. Even if it doesn't live up to its immense promise, "Insomnia" features two strong performances at its centre, an intriguing plot, and Wally Pfister's gorgeous cinematography.
3/4 - DirectorJan KomasaStarsBartosz BieleniaAleksandra KoniecznaEliza RycembelDaniel experiences a spiritual transformation in a detention center. Although his criminal record prevents him from applying to the seminary, he has no intention of giving up his dream and decides to minister a small-town parish.08-03-2020
Daniel (Bartosz Bielenia) wants to be a priest. Daniel is also in prison. These two facts just don't go together and on the day of his early release, the prison chaplain (Lukasz Simlat) explains to him patiently that no seminary school in Poland will accept a former convict. Defeated, Daniel goes, gets high, and has sex in a discotheque toilet. Later that night, at a house party where more than a few lines of coke have been snorted, Daniel shows off a priest outfit he's just bought. "Saint Daniel," jokes one of the partiers just before Daniel headbutts him.
A condition of his early release is that Daniel gets a job at a small town sawmill. He heads out there on a bus where he has a rude run-in with a local cop (Juliusz Chrzastowski). "I am disgusted by filth like you," he tells Daniel before he has him kicked out. Daniel treks out to the sawmill, takes one look at it and decides it's not for him. This industrial inferno in the midst of the Polish countryside idyl doesn't strike him as a welcoming place. He decides to journey on but as the night is falling he goes to the local town church for Mass. There he meets Eliza (Eliza Rycembel), a young lass his age who immediately recognises him. "You're from the sawmill". Meaning, of course, you're a convict. Ashamed, Daniel makes up a lie and says he's a priest. "Alright, where's your collar then, father," Eliza challenges him. He produces his priest suit.
What he doesn't know is that Eliza is the daughter of the local priest's maid, the stern Lidia (Aleksandra Konieczna) who takes him straight to the local priest (Zdzislaw Wardejn). Daniel has come like manna from Heaven, they tell him. The priest is off for alcoholic treatment and needs someone to replace him. Of course, the Bishop must know nothing of this. Would Daniel help? Daniel, though at first reticent, takes the job.
The town is, as he later learns, healing from a tragedy. Seven of the townsfolk's kids were killed in a head-on collision. One of them was Eliza's brother, Lidia's son. Although uncouth, brash, without training, and not actually part of the church, Daniel is exactly the priest this town needs. Why? Because he's uncouth, brash, without training, and not actually part of the church. His direct, honest, unorthodox sermons and informal, open manner allow him to see and attempt to heal the great rift that's opened up in the town as a result of the tragedy. Unlike the previous priest who was just as stern and formal as his housekeeper, Daniel has a love of God and a willingness to share it. This doesn't go over so well with everyone though, most of all Lidia whose pain over the loss of her son prevents her from opening her heart to forgiveness and the local mayor (Leszek Lichota), a corrupt small-town industrialist whose only concern is keeping the status quo. But the rest of the town take to their unusual new priest who brings a breath of fresh air to the town and possibility of change.
"Corpus Christi", Jan Komasa's wonderful comedy is reminiscent in its warmth and humanity of Ealing comedies, an atmosphere it deftly mixes with an honest and unflinching look at human pain and a profound message of forgiveness and gentleness. It takes its seemingly naive storyline and infuses it with real characters and difficult situations never shying away from reminding us that Daniel is no saint himself. Bartosz Bielenia is pitch-perfect in this complex role. Daniel is no stranger to fighting, drugs, and drinking. He was only a boy when he went to prison and has been, to a certain degree, corrupted there, but that's also where he found faith which is why his approach to religion is so child-like and innocent. The dichotomy between his criminal side and his lamb-like innocence makes for a fascinating character.
The rest of the cast is excellent as well. Aleksandra Konieczna is superb as the grieving mother who hides her pain behind a tough exterior. Watching her struggle with what she knows is right and what she feels is right is often heartbreaking. The film even finds compassion for Pinczer (Tomasz Zietek), a lowlife convict and Daniel's fellow inmate who shows up in the town with blackmail on his mind. At first, he seems like just another brute but as we get to know him we see he's just yet another in a series of characters hurt by circumstance. His actions aren't out of evil or even greed but out of pain and an inability to deal with it. This humanity is "Corpus Christi's" greatest strength. Often, in the film, I truly found myself wishing to reach out to its characters and help them. This wouldn't be possible without screenwriter Mateusz Pacewicz who found ways to make all of the townspeople into three-dimensional, relatable characters. Even when we disagree with their actions, we sympathise with their motives.
It must be said, in conclusion, that anyone who would be turned off from this film by its Christian themes would be wrong. This is not a Christian film in the sense that it propagates any kind of religious sentiment or belief per se. Its message is one of forgiveness, love, and understanding, and its central theme is one of wisdom of purity. Daniel's faith is uncorrupted by church politics, old age, or cynicism and he is, therefore, the one who speaks with most sense. "Corpus Christi" is a film of surprising warmth and wit but also hard-hitting reality. It doesn't shy away from journeying into the darkness of human hearts nor from delivering some biting social commentary cleverly nested among its more ethereal themes. As much as I enjoy the films of Paweł Pawlikowski, I have to say "Corpus Christi" is easily the most touching and heartfelt film to come out of Poland since Kieślowski left. I for one am looking forward to the future movies made by Jan Komasa and Mateusz Pacewicz.
4/4 - DirectorBong Joon HoStarsSong Kang-hoKim Sang-kyungKim Roe-haIn a small Korean province in 1986, two detectives struggle with the case of multiple young women being found raped and murdered by an unknown culprit.12-03-2020
- DirectorSrdan GolubovicStarsGoran BogdanBoris IsakovicNada SarginA Serbian man fights to regain custody of his children.14-03-2020
3.5/4 - DirectorSteve GukasStarsPaul AdamsSeun AjayiBimbo AkintolaWhat happens when the deadliest infectious disease know to man arrives in a megacity with over 21 million people .19-03-2020
The 93 days from the title refer to the time period during which Nigeria fought off and successfully contained an outbreak of Ebola in their capital city of Lagos with only 20 confirmed cases and 8 casualties, a remarkably small number in what was a nigh cataclysmic 2014 Africa-wide epidemic. It is dedicated to the brave doctors and nurses who worked bravely and tirelessly during this trying period and boy can you feel the sentiment. Steve Gukas' heartfelt drama often comes across as hoaky due to its decidedly heavy-handed messaging and emotionality. Every scene features a rousing speech set to rousing music with rousing close-ups of teary-eyed faces and the effect is unfortunately much less than rousing. I found myself not so much moved by the sacrifice of Nigeria's medical workers as bemused by Gukas' lack of subtlety.
Admirable, however, is his restraint at employing horror cliches (a la "Outbreak") as part of his storytelling toolkit. The film is constructed as a character-driven drama and not a disaster movie which is a palpable temptation for most filmmakers dealing with topics such as these, a temptation even Steven Soderbergh was occasionally led into in his otherwise excellent 2011 film "Contagion". "93 Days", on the other hand, is centred around two female doctors who come into contact with the deadly disease. The first of them is Dr Ameyo Adadevoh (Bimbo Akintola), a highly respected workaholic who was the first to suspect Ebola had entered Nigeria when a bullish Liberian diplomat (Keppy Ekpenyong-Bassey) is admitted to her hospital with suspicious symptoms. She is treated in this film, however, less as a human being and more as some sort of saint with almost the same kind of reverence Moustapha Akkad had for Muhammed when he made "The Message". This approach to characterisation and the screenwriters' tendency to speechify and repeatedly talk about things we would more interested in seeing makes Dr Adadevoh's segment of the film sadly the least successful. Also not treated like characters are the Dr Ohiaeri (Danny Glover), the hospital director with almost saintly patience and the aforementioned Liberian diplomat who is so demonised for bringing Ebola to Nigeria that you'd think he was some kind of bioterrorist and not simply a terrified human being lashing out at the doctors out of fear and not evil. Bimbo Akintola, it must be said, tries her best and actually gives a very notable performance within the limitations of the script. I enjoyed her interactions with her on-screen son (Charles Etubiebi) and her toughness in the face of obtrusive politicians. I just wish her character was a bit more believable.
The other doctor focused on is Dr Ada (Somkele Iyamah-Idhalama) who becomes infected after treating the Liberian diplomat. She is transferred to Yaba, a makeshift Ebola unit on the outskirts of Lagos where a very small team led by a kindly American doctor (Alastair Mackenzie) struggles to deal with the incoming patients. This segment of the film is a lot more successful mainly because it gives Ada and the American, Dr Major, more room to develop as believable characters. This is also down to good performances from Idhalama and Mackenzie who valiantly deal with the heartstring-tugging dialogue they've been handed. The growing friendship and admiration between them is also effective as is Ada's determination to help treat the other patients on her ward in spite of her own symptoms. There are even occasional moments of humour such as the taxi driver's over-the-top reaction at being told he's unwittingly found himself in an Ebola ward, though I'm not entirely sure these were 100% intended to be funny.
"93 Days" is an unusual experience in that it is most effective when it isn't aware it's being effective. The character interactions, quiet desperation, and occasional moments of humour convey its message a lot better than its oh-so-frequent speechifying, rousing music, and melodramatic moments. There is, sadly, a lot more of the latter than the former and vast sections of "93 Days" fail to evoke anything but groans and snickers. The cast, besides Akintola, Idhalama, and Mackenzie, also leaves a lot to be desired. Charles Etubiebi is especially wooden as Dr Adadevoh's worried son and his acting would be considered troubling even in a high-school play. Danny Glover, however, is the film's biggest problem. Obviously rattling off his lines for the money alone, he is less enthusiastic and sicker-looking than the supposed Ebola patients. Because of his lack of trying, his scenes with Dr Adadevoh which were meant to be warm and loving completely fail to evoke any kind of emotion. I don't know what happened to Mr Glover, but if there's anything he's too old for it's acting.
In short, "93 Days" is admirable in its intentions but fails in its execution due to a lacklustre heavy-handed script. An unfortunate miss.
2/4 - DirectorJacques RivetteStarsSandrine BonnaireJerzy RadziwilowiczGrégoire ColinSylvie, a 30-year-old scientist, has to dig deeper and deeper into her own background.20-03-2020
4/4 - DirectorOriol PauloStarsJose CoronadoHugo SilvaBelén RuedaA detective searches for the body of a femme fatale which has gone missing from a morgue.21-03-2020
It's a dark and stormy night. Police inspector Jaime Pena (Jose Coronado) is called to the hospital. A local morgue guard (Miquel Gelabert) has been struck by a car after running from his post in a panic. Upon investigating the morgue, Pena and his colleagues discover it broken into and a body missing. That of Mayka Villaverde (Belén Rueda), a rich businesswoman who died that afternoon of a sudden heart attack. On the other side of town, Mayka's husband Alex (Hugo Silva) is celebrating her death with his mistress (Aura Garrido). Upon receiving the news of her body's disappearance he's shocked. "I know what I did and I know it worked," he says. After all, he saw her drink the poison, right? Upon arriving at the morgue Alex finds the cops as baffled as he is. They're suspecting Mayka wasn't dead at all but rather in a coma. It would explain why the guard ran away in a panic as well as the mysterious taunting clues showing up around the morgue pointing the finger of blame at Alex. Except, Alex isn't buying it. He knows Mayka is dead and suspects someone knows he killed her. Trapped in the morgue by the storm with the suspicious inspector watching his every step, Alex has to solve the mystery of the body's disappearance before the cops solve the mystery of Mayka's death.
"The Body" is a tense, atmospheric thriller written and directed by Oriol Paulo who also wrote Guillem Morales' stylish chiller "Julia's Eyes" which, in retrospect, shares many similarities with "The Body". Both have terrific premises, are well-paced and full of twists and turns, but they also become more and more preposterous as they go along until they reach their ultimately unsatisfying conclusion. However, I have to say this degeneration bothered me more in "Julia's Eyes" because "The Body", like a 70s Italian Giallo thriller, gleefully embraces its melodramatic lunacy and goes for the shock over the more psychological thrills Morales' film seemed to promise. In directing his material Paulo does not make the mistake of trying to disguise its pulpy nature. He seems to revel in its artificiality by highlighting every twist with almost cartoonish thundercracks and allowing his cast to pitch their performances way over the top. There's something undeniably attractive about this approach and it definitely makes "The Body" a lot more fun to watch.
This is not to say this film doesn't work as a thriller. Paulo shows himself as a very competent director building up a spooky atmosphere around the question of who stole Mayka's body even successfully presenting the possibility that the solution might be supernatural. He is, it must be said, blessed to be working with one of the finest cinematographers working today, Oscar Faura. His snake-like, sneaking, sweeping camera movements highlight the emotional torment our lead characters are going through whilst also making full use of the film's claustrophobic setting. His impressionistic lighting, reminiscent of the kind used by Hitchcock in the 50s and 60s, rounds out the film's artificial style. The final piece of the puzzle is Sergio Moure's booming orchestral score which effectively evokes Bernard Herrmann.
The cast is also in on the game. Jose Coronado really goes for the sweaty, nervous, rage-filled police inspector cliche with obvious elan. Likewise, Belén Rueda's sneering performance as Mayka in the film's several flashback sequences would be ridiculous in any other film but here works perfectly. It is, however, Hugo Silva who really impresses as the murderous husband threatened by an unknown villain more powerful than him. He manages the unlikely task of making his character both repulsively sneaky and engagingly sympathetic. I was rooting for him all the way through even though I didn't like him.
"The Body" definitely works in a style-over-substance manner. It is fun, keeps you guessing, and it features some of the best atmosphere building I've ever seen in a modern movie. But if we were ever to look at it seriously it would fall apart quicker than a house of cards in the morning breeze. The plot is full of holes, characters repeatedly act like idiots, and the final twist is so preposterous and illogical I audibly groaned when it happened. This is why Oriol Paulo envelopes the film in a style of heightened artificiality. So we wouldn't think of its many flaws realistically. And I have to say, for the most part, it worked. I had a great time being taken for a ride by Paulo and his gifted team and even though I didn't believe its plot for a second, I had a large smile on my face when "The Body" finished. It's a fun thriller and what more can you ask from it?
3/4 - DirectorMar TargaronaStarsBlanca PortilloAntonio DechentVicente RomeroWhen her boy's alleged kidnapper is released for lack of solid evidence, a reputable and well-known attorney takes matters into her own hands with unintended and spectacularly disastrous consequences.22-03-2020
Screenwriter Oriol Paulo has acquired the reputation of being something of a Spanish M. Night Shyamalan due to his work on twisty psychological thrillers such as "Julia's Eyes" and "The Body", but here is a film which proves he's more than capable of crafting a subtler, more character-driven film whose focus is less on preposterous twists and more on the old-fashioned premise of ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances. "Missing Boy" focuses on Patricia (Blanca Portillo), a tough, wildly successful defence lawyer whose deaf son Victor (Marc Domènech) is found bloodied after a supposed kidnapping attempt. After he identifies his kidnapper as Charlie (Andrés Herrera), a petty criminal trying his best to go straight for the benefit of his pregnant wife (Macarena Gómez), Patricia thinks she can sleep calmly. But then Charlie is seen in front of Patricia's house and that same night Victor sees a mysterious figure creeping around the backyard. After being informed by the police that Charlie has produced a believable alibi and is no longer a suspect, Patricia decides to take matters into her own hands. She contacts an old client and former fling Raul (Jose Coronado) and asks him to "teach Charlie a lesson". Things go very wrong, however, when Charlie is killed during what was supposed to be just a beating and the two accidental killers decide to blackmail Patricia for 5 million euros.
This is a fairly basic, Hitchcockian plot, well-told and full of twists and turns but without beating around the bush, what makes "Missing Boy" work as well as it does is the character of Patricia. She is the sort of character we very rarely see in thrillers, a tough, competent, and whip-smart woman who never flounders in the face of adversity. There are no long scenes of self-doubt or quivering breakdowns when things get tough. She knows what needs to be done and she does it. It is quite refreshing to see a character in a thriller be competent. It is only circumstances and other people who make Patricia's plans go bad. Another extremely smart choice from writer Oriol Paulo is to make Patricia be a loving, present mother. This gives her motivation which we can get behind. She's not going after Charlie because she fears for her safety, but because she fears for her son, the only person in the world she truly cares for. And we can identify with that. For that reason, we can get behind almost everything she does, no matter how criminal it may be. Desperate times require desperate actions and a child in threat is about as desperate as it gets. Paulo underlines this beautifully with a single line in a scene in which Patricia blackmails a dirty judge. "If this comes out you won't come across any better than me," he says. "Anything will be better than being separated from my son," she replies in a heartbeat. Blanca Portillo's performance in the role is superb. The sturdy intensity she gives off is worthy of Isabelle Huppert. She is fully believable as both a no-nonsense lawyer and a loving mother and her performance alone elevates "Boy Missing" from a competent thriller into a truly intriguing character study of an unwavering woman faced with life-altering decisions.
The rest of the film is like I said, competent if not truly remarkable. Oriol Paulo deftly and believably pulls off a surprising number of twists. "Boy Missing" is easily his best put-together script to date and it is surprising he didn't direct it himself. Those duties are performed by Mar Targarona, a producer who'd only ever directed an obscure sex comedy before. For someone who's essentially a first-timer, he does a surprisingly sleek job. Cinematographer Sergi Bartrolí gives the film a stylish but suitably subdued look with Marc Vaíllo providing a marvellously torrid orchestral score. The rest of the cast does a stellar job especially Andrés Herrera and Macarena Gómez who are effectively convincing as a loving but troubled couple looking to create a new life for themselves. Antonio Dechent, Vicente Romero, and Nausicaa Bonnín are less remarkable as very conventional movie cops who seem somewhat out-of-place next to the gritty and powerful performance from Blanca Portillo but I guess they are serviceable. The cast is rounded out by the always enjoyable Jose Coronado who is convincing in his minor role.
"Boy Missing" is a well-written modern Hitchcockian thriller intriguingly elevated into a compelling character drama by a superb performance from Blanca Portillo. It is also a fun, nerve-wracking thriller which would have been better had it explored Patricia's dark side some more but is perfectly diverting and occasionally surprisingly intriguing even as it stands.
3/4 - DirectorPatrice ChéreauStarsMark RylanceKerry FoxSusannah HarkerA failed London musician meets once a week with a woman for a series of intense sexual encounters to get away from the realities of life. But when he begins inquiring about her, it puts their relationship at risk.23-03-2020
One day, Jay (Mark Rylance), a failed musician turned barman walked out of his family home never to return leaving behind a distant wife (Susannah Harker) and a son he loved. Throughout the film, we keep wondering if he's reconsidering that decision. Married life wasn't happy for him. As a person, he needs warmth, craves intimacy, and he certainly wasn't getting that from Susan. As a nightly ritual, he'd wait for her to go sleep before retreating to the bathroom to masturbate. Now they don't talk anymore. When he gets to see his son, they only exchange cursory glances. But in essence, not much has changed.
When we first meet Jay, he's sleeping on a couch in his underwear in a filthy, half-empty flat. Drunk and stoned it is obvious he has not found whatever he was looking for after leaving his wife. He is roused by his doorbell. He totters to the door only to find Claire (Kerry Fox) there looking somewhat sheepish. He is surprised but not unpleasantly. "Was this agreed?" he asks. "No," she replies. He offers her coffee and then proceeds to clumsily make small talk. "As a rule, they put down the kitchens downstairs, but here it's upstairs. It's not actually terribly convenient, I've spilt no end of stuff. But the guy upstairs is never home, so I just spill things, and there's no one to see." "Oh, you really live here?" Her question stops him for a second. It is unexpectedly intimate. "You asked me that last time," he retorts. Last time? And yet they seem as awkward as if they've just met.
Then they finally make their way to a bare cellar where they undress and have sex. Now things become clearer. For weeks, Claire has been showing up at Jay's door for sex. Nothing more. They rarely talk, don't sleep together, and she leaves just after it's over. Their sex is animalistic, rough, and clearly lacking in tenderness. It is a purely physical connection they share. Or is it? At one point, Jay tries to introduce some more intimacy into their sexual relationship. "There's no need," she tells him misinterpreting his intentions. But for Jay, it is needed. What was for a while an adventure becomes an obsession. Like with Susan he craves intimacy and perhaps he has fallen for this mysterious woman.
He begins following her after their weekly sessions. She knows it but she lets him. Jay knows she knows but to hell with it. He wants her soul as well as her body and if he can't have it he'll give her up completely. He follows her to an amateur theatre night in a pub where she's performing. She's an actress. Not a talented one but committed and her life is curiously compartmentalized. Tuesday and Friday she holds classes for wannabe actors. Thursdays are theatre nights. And on Wednesdays, she has sex with Jay.
At the pub, Jay meets Claire's husband Andy (Timothy Spall), a gregarious cabbie who strikes up an easy conversation with Jay. He tells him he comes there every night when there's a show just so he can listen to the comments of the audience and relate them back to his wife. He clearly loves her but can he satisfy her? He's not as artistic as she is. In fact, he's fairly crude in a witty sort of way. He doesn't actually watch the plays preferring to play pool upstairs waiting for it to finish. Jay sees his opportunity here and he prods Andy. "It must be pretty unusual, a bloke following it all, though, like you do." Andy's happy to help. He invites Jay for a game of pool. Jay, in a bid to possess Claire, own her, starts pushing Andy. "What would you think of a mother who has it off on the sly, regularly and then goes back home in the evening, as if nothing happened? Kiss the kids, give them a hug, pour herself a drink, pour a drink for the fuck wit sitting opposite her at the table." But Andy is not surprised. He obviously knows of his wife's extracurricular activities. "I say that as long as she comes home every evening, that's fine. Just fine." But is it fine? We get the idea Andy is fine with it as long as he can ignore it. Just like Claire's play. As long as he can stay upstairs oblivious to the plot he's fine. Faced with Jay his happy-go-lucky front slowly chips away.
"Intimacy" is an intriguing if flawed film from Patrice Chéreau and works best at a purely intellectual level. Thinking about the questions it poses and considering the problem at its heart, a quest for intimacy in the face of modern alienation, is far more enjoyable than taking it at face value when its plot contrivances and long-winded dialogue scenes often seem unbelievable. There is, however, a lot that is right about "Intimacy". The sex scenes, in particular, are breathtaking. Each of the film's five graphic sex scenes informs us further about the characters and their intentions. They are cold and distinctly unerotic but that is not their purpose. This is not "Emmanuelle". Chéreau, instead, brilliantly treats each of them as a dialogue scene or a kind of ballet in which Jay strives for intimacy and Claire avoids it. Their moods and desires of the day influence their lovemaking. I never knew so much could be said about people just from the way they have sex. In this regard, Chéreau triumphs.
Less successful are actual dialogue scenes. There are several superfluous subplots in "Intimacy" which often lead to drawn-out discussions on life and love which sound less like natural dialogue and more like readings from philosophy books. Jay's chats with his co-worker Ian (Philippe Calvario) are downright unbearable in their naval-contemplating dullness. Chéreau seems to use Ian only to express the film's complex ideas in words, complex ideas Chéreau is more than capable of expressing through character actions. Even less successful are Claire's talks with her elderly friend Betty (Marianne Faithfull) largely because I have a suspicion Chéreau doesn't really understand women. "Intimacy" is essentially an exploration of male cravings and its female characters remain cyphers. Another superfluous character is Jay's junky pal Victor (Alastair Galbraith) whose role in the film is to show what Jay could become if he doesn't attain what he seeks. This is a nice idea but the chaotic scenes featuring Victor run on for far too long and I became weary of him very soon.
The only wholly successful dialogue scene is the pool table discussion between Jay and Andy. Watching two superb actors such as Mark Rylance and Timothy Spall spout off such emotionally charged dialogue full of subtext and menace makes for some of the most enthralling cinema I've seen for a long time. Spall is simply superb as Andy finding depths in the simplest of lines most actors would simply gloss over. Even the simplest of lines such as "Just the two of us" is charged and the scene sizzles. I am now even more aware of the fact that any film with Timothy Spall in it is absolutely worth watching.
That is not to say Rylance is not good. In fact, he's just as superb. He infuses Jay with a kind of nervous energy that makes him unable to stop. He doesn't move as much as he oscillates through every scene he's in. He can't seem to keep calm for even a second and this conveys the emotional turmoil and desire that's eating him up from the inside better than any dialogue scene ever could. With his haunted, skull-like face, measured delivery and immense physicality, Rylance impresses even when the material lets him down. Kerry Fox as Claire fares somewhat worse but this is down to the fact her character is sadly underwritten. We don't get nearly enough of her side of the story and in the end, a lot of her motivation remains to be guessed. Fox is a capable, gifted actress and in the more physical scenes she matches Rylance's intensity but she clearly struggles with some of the film's more talky portions. To be honest, I can't blame her.
There is a fantastic 80-minute movie in the two-hour "Intimacy". Cut out all the philosophical claptrap, all the distractions, and all the subplot. "Intimacy" only works when it focuses tightly on its three leads. Whenever Rylance is on screen with either Kerry Fox or Timothy Spall, the film sizzles. It is, however, an undeniable fact that what works in "Intimacy" gets bogged down by long-winded and often patience-trying excess and this is sad. Still, it would be even sadder if you were to miss what is an intriguing and forcefully original film. Led by three superb performances and featuring perhaps the best sex scenes ever shot on film, "Intimacy" is worth seeing, warts and all.
3/4 - DirectorBob ClarkStarsOlivia HusseyKeir DulleaMargot KidderDuring their Christmas break, a group of sorority girls are stalked by a stranger.24-03-2020
"Black Christmas", one of the earliest (if not, arguably, the earliest) dead teenager slasher films shouldn't, on paper, be nearly as effective as it is. Its basic premise of a group of college girls being stalked and killed by an obscene caller hiding in the attic of their sorority house was crude and predictable even in 1974, the core cast of characters are indistinguishable from each other and serve only as cannon fodder for the crazed killer, and there is a distinct lack of ambition at show here and the film lacks any kind of subtext or sense of satire which graced its immediate predecessors Mario Bava's cult classic "Bay of Blood" and Tobe Hooper's now legendary "Texas Chain Saw Massacre" and its immediate successor John Carpenter's masterpiece "Halloween". And yet, rewatching "Black Christmas" I was surprised at how genuinely creepy it was and how remarkably fresh it seemed. So why does "Black Christmas" work even if it was made from a third-rate screenplay?
Well, first of all, it is photographed superbly by Reginald Morris. Like Carpenter would some four years later, Morris envelopes the world of "Black Christmas" in shadows and darkness providing its stalker many places to hide. Even in the most jovial of scenes (such as the party scene in the beginning), the characters are surrounded by shadowy corners, dark rooms beyond the door, and dancing shadows on the walls behind them which may or may not belong to the killer. Almost the entire film takes place inside the rickety old sorority house and Morris takes full advantage of this location lit largely by desk lamps and an old chandelier high above the actual room. The effect is reminiscent of the lighting used by the Dutch masters. The protagonists are usually highlighted by being stood next to light sources which are still too weak to fully illuminate them putting moody shadows on their faces while the backgrounds are either poorly lit or not at all giving the illusion of endless hiding space all around the sorority house. When needed, Morris slips into a more classical thriller lighting style with great ease. The final chase scene, for instance, is lit almost like a 1940s Val Lewton film with strong direct light producing sharp shadows and even a scene in which the eyes of the unfortunate victim are illuminated by a strip of lighting. Finally, there's the grainy film stock which (through subconscious association on the part of the audience) gives "Black Christmas" an atmosphere of seediness and voyeurism, making us feel like we're watching a 1970s snuff film.
Director Bob Clark's camera placements and movements contribute immensely to the film's atmosphere. Allowing the camera to freely roam throughout the sorority house and shoot from unusual angles (behind the railing, underneath the characters, from another room etc.) we're constantly reminded of the possibility that everything our characters do could be watched by the psycho hiding in the house. Thus, we're never allowed to fully relax even in the occasional moments of comic relief (which, it must be said, get fewer and fewer as the film progresses). He also manages to evoke our character's psychological states through his use of the camera. Take for instance the scene in which Jess (Olivia Hussey) is informed by the police that the threatening calls she's been receiving are coming from inside the house. At first, Clark shoots Jess on the phone talking to the police officer in a close-up. The phone she's holding is prominent in the shot giving us a false sense of security. A feeling that help is on its way. When the officer tells Jess "the calls are coming from the house", Clark cuts to a wide shot framing Jess with ample room around her, highlighting the fact that she's all alone in the house with the psycho. The shot is taken from the second floor, where we know the killer is hiding, looking at Jess down a staircase. He might be watching! The camera zooms towards her face showing pure terror in her eyes. It is an incredibly effective shot. Another masterfully directed scene has shots of the psycho killing one of the girls in her bed juxtaposed against close-ups of children carolers singing in front of the house. It is a wonderfully bizarre moment.
And speaking of bizarre, Clark's film posses an uncomfortable air of surreality around it. Contributing to this atmosphere are the unnaturally overstated performances from the entire cast clearly encouraged by Clark to go well over the top and occasional moments of inappropriate humour in some of the film's darker or more emotional scenes. I don't entirely understand why Clark opted to do this but it definitely contributes to the overall feeling of oddness and discomfort which I was feeling all throughout the film.
As the final piece of the puzzle, there's Carl Zittrer's atonal and disturbing soundtrack comprised of weird clinging noises and windchimes producing an effect similar to that when you're home alone and you hear a settling noise that sounds a bit like a footstep. His music, which at times is difficult to distinguish from diegetic sounds within the film, was way ahead of its time and would feel at home in a horror movie of today.
So, simply put, what makes "Black Christmas" work is the excellent execution of a less than stellar screenplay. With his talented team, director Bob Clark has succeeded in crafting what I can now confidently call a horror film for the ages which like "Halloween" or even "Rosemary's Baby" has withstood the test of time and which will live on to scare the generations to come. It must also be said that like those two films, "Black Christmas" doesn't dwell on its moments of violence, it doesn't indulge in gore or any form of ghoulishly gleeful sadism over its protagonists. Its scares and thrills come entirely from the well-built atmosphere with its brief interludes of violence serving only as punctuation. Even though the poor characterisation and hoaky plot don't promise much, the direction and the camera work impress. With a gloomy atmosphere of imminent danger and lots of well-thought-out cinematic moments, "Black Christmas" is not only one of the earliest but also one of the finest slasher films around.
3.5/4 - DirectorOriol PauloStarsMario CasasAna WagenerJose CoronadoA successful entrepreneur accused of murder and a witness preparation expert have less than three hours to come up with an impregnable defense.24-03-2020
"The Invisible Guest" begins with a woman (Ana Wagener) at the door. Like Schroedinger's cat, until she's formally introduced she could be anyone. We regard her clothes. Formal, expensive, elegant. Her haircut. Short, business-like. Her demeanour. Curt, professional. When she's eventually introduced as Virginia Goodman, witness preparation expert, we're not surprised but in truth, she could have been anyone. She's visiting a young, handsome man (Mario Casas) in a swanky penthouse apartment in the middle of the night. Are they having an affair? No, her professional demeanour and his slight reservation exclude that. He must desperately need her help then, in a professional capacity? Yes. He's then introduced as Adrián Doria, a businessman accused of murdering his lover Laura (Bárbara Lennie). He claims he didn't do it. We believe him. After all, he's the protagonist right? In truth, we don't know.
Virginia Goodman cuts to the chase. "One of my courthouse sources says the prosecutor has a last-minute witness who could turn your case around. We don't know who it is yet, but they're being taken to the court to testify in three hours. It's very likely you'll be called to testify tonight as well. Your testimony has holes. I need details. They're going to request your immediate arrest, Mr Doria. We have 180 minutes to start over, so I advise you to stop whining and let's get to work." Doria begins his story. Laura and he were being blackmailed by someone who was asking for a lot of money. The drop off was to happen at a remote hotel in the mountains, but when they got there an unknown assailant (the invisible guest of the title) knocked Doria out and killed Laura. When he came to she was dead and that's all he knows.
Virginia isn't buying it. Why the remote hotel? Why kill Laura and frame, Doria? And most importantly, how did the killer manage to escape a locked hotel room without being seen by the police knocking down the front door. No. These are the hotels Virginia sees in Doria's story. She reminds him, they only have 180 minutes. "Tell me the truth." So he does. Only the truth begins a few months before the murder when Laura and Doria, driving on a village backroad swerved to miss a deer and hit an innocent man. They covered it up at the time, but someone must have known because that's what they were blackmailed about, not their affair.
To succinctly recount any more of the plot would not only be spoiling it but it would also be impossible. Like his previous directing effort, "The Body", writer/director Oriol Paolo makes sure that every 10 or so minutes a twist so major is introduced that everything you thought you knew before turns out to be wrong. That's why I was being so coy in my plot description, in "The Invisible Guest" every story has another angle, every theory has a hole, and every detail could have been faked. New evidence is continually introduced, new theories given, and old ones shown false. It only goes to show just how malleable the truth is and how two people can reach two completely different solutions from the exact same evidence.
At one point in the film, Virginia recounts a wee riddle for Doria to solve. A corpse is found hanging from a 10m beam in the middle of an empty barn. The walls on either side of him were too far to climb and there is no other way to reach the beam. How did he hang himself? The answer - he stood on an ice block and waited for it to melt. Here we get to the real problem I have with this film. All the twists introduced in it feel much like the twist of the little riddle outlined above. Unmotivated, slightly implausible, and so farfetched as to seem arbitrary. The story twists and the characters lie only because Oriol Paulo wants them to and not because they are believably motivated to do so. A sleight of hand in a movie must be performed by the characters, not the director, for the audience not to feel cheated. Throughout "The Invisible Guest", I felt like I was being teased by Paulo and not like I was watching real events unfold. His influence on the plot is so obvious as to become distracting. His characters are like chess pieces him to, mindless pawns that do his bidding, and all plot elements are subject to change based entirely on his whim. Whenever a twist happened I swear I could almost hear him snickering and saying "they'll never guess this one" under his breath. Well no, because you can't guess that which isn't plausible.
More disappointing, however, is the fact that I guessed the ending. Yes, dear reader, I guessed it and I hereby admit I have nothing to brag about. The only reason I guessed it is because I caught onto Paulo's mannerism of always pulling off the least plausible twist and I just imagined what that could be. That plus I've read "Hercule Poirot's Christmas".
On the other hand, there's no denying "The Invisible Guest" is a crowd-pleaser. Its lighting fast pace, twist upon twist, and music video visuals are bound to keep even the most distractable teenager with their eyes peeled to the screen. I too was sufficiently entertained that I do not regret seeing it. Technically, it is very well executed. Paulo has an undeniably engaging visual style and knows how to build up a suspenseful scene. Cinematographer Xavi Giménez also does a good job (even though he can't live up to his colleague Oscar Faura's work on "The Body") as does composer Fernando Velázquez who provides a suitably bombastic score for this ultra fast-paced thriller. The visual effects, however, do occasionally fail Paulo especially in the car crash scene, but in a film this densely packed you're bound to forget about the dodgy CGI fairly quickly.
The cast also is very good especially Jose Coronado whom I've grown to expect nothing less than perfection from. Ana Wagener sells her cliched part as the tough lawyer very well too. Mario Casas is sufficiently sleazy to pass as a businessman with Machiavelian tendencies and Bárbara Lennie impresses in the early portions of the film but her character undergoes so many changes as the story twists and turns that I'm no longer sure what she was supposed to be playing. Either way, she did a good job.
"The Invisible Guest" both irritated and entertained me. What irritated me were its over-the-top twists pulled in a distinctly nose-pulling manner by its flashy author. What entertained me were the good performances, excellent visuals, and its playful style. Take from that what you will. If you enjoy a twisty thriller even if it doesn't make too much sense, "The Invisible Guest" is for you. If, however, you prefer a more substantial movie with character depth and a storyline which rises above a playground riddle, then go watch something else.
2.5/4 - DirectorGlen MorganStarsMichelle TrachtenbergMary Elizabeth WinsteadLacey ChabertOn Christmas Eve, an escaped maniac returns to his childhood home, which is now a sorority house, and begins to murder the sorority sisters one by one.24-03-2020
When I reviewed the 1974 slasher classic "Black Christmas" I summed up its style by saying that it "doesn't dwell on its moments of violence, it doesn't indulge in gore or any form of ghoulishly gleeful sadism over its protagonists instead its scares and thrills come entirely from the well-built atmosphere with its brief interludes of violence serving only as punctuation". This 2006 remake inverts this by going for the gore and the shocks but it is a credit to director/writer Glen Morgan that I didn't really mind it. It is obvious from the get-go that his film is going in an entirely different direction than its progenitor and that this "Black Christmas" wouldn't be so much a remake as a reimagining of the original, and I'm fine with that. After all, Bob Clark's film was so successful in what it set out to do there would be little point in repeating it.
This "Black Christmas" presents the same basic plot as the original employing an overstated, visually appealing comic book style. The kills are gory and over-the-top, the colours often garish and in-your-face. Dutch angles are frequently employed and dramatic push-ins punctuate every important information.
The plot, as I said, is pretty much the same. A group of college girls are stalked and killed in their sorority house by an unknown maniac hiding in their loft who leaves them threatening phone messages after every kill. However, a significant number of alterations to the details has been made. For one, a lot more time is dedicated to profiling the psycho who in the original was left deliberately and effectively entirely mysterious. Here he is an escaped mental patient who'd killed his incestuous mother (Karin Konoval) and violent stepfather 15 years earlier on Christmas. Another significant alteration is that the girls become aware that they're being stalked and killed halfway into the movie and decide to fight back something their 1974 counterparts didn't do instead remaining oblivious to the murders until the very end.
What do these changes bring to this film? Well, for one, it is a lot more action-packed. This is a loud movie unlike its quiet and menacing predecessor and every few minutes there's a "Final Destination"-like kill. Icicles stab people in the eye and come out the other end. Victims are dragged by their eyesockets into dark crawlspaces. Women are decapitated and left to freeze in cars. Meanwhile, giving the psycho more space allows Morgan to turn him into a more physical villain. He's strong, he crawls inside the house's walls with remarkable ease, long hair covers his face and his androgynous looks make us unsure of his identity from the get-go.
I have to say at this point that comparing the 1974 film and this remake has little point in critically assessing its values. It is a film with an entirely different agenda, so let's now look at it on its own. The comic book style, I have to say, made me laugh. I don't normally enjoy splatter films but "Black Christmas" had a certain sense of humour about its gore that I enjoyed. Everything is so over-the-top and goofy that I was never grossed out by its content or made to feel uncomfortable by its violence. It is an intentionally silly movie. On the other hand, it is also not in the least scary or even creepy and that, I suppose, makes it a failure in a certain sense. It is certainly not a successful horror movie.
Other aspects where it fails is the characterisation of the girls. Some attempt is made to make them stand out from each other but once the carnage begins they all act in the exact same stupid manner and I eventually couldn't tell them apart. They are also uniformly unlikeable and spend the entire 90-minute runtime sniping at each other, a frequent trait of bad horror movies which wore on me very, very quickly. I soon began rooting for the killer to get them just to make them stop bickering.
For these two reasons, annoying characters and lack of scares, "Black Christmas" overstays its welcome. I was amused by its style for the first 30 or so minutes but its lack of substance becomes glaringly obvious the longer the film goes on for. By the time its third act began I'd already stopped caring. I commend writer/director Glen Morgan for trying something new with the material rather than simply remaking "Black Christmas", but even though he injects the film with a healthy dose of humour at the point where the laughter should stop and the screaming start all I heard was silence.
1.5/4 - DirectorJoyce ChopraStarsTreat WilliamsLaura DernMary Kay PlaceA free-spirited 15-year-old girl flirts with a dangerous stranger in the Northern California suburbs and must prepare herself for the frightening and traumatic consequences.25-03-2020
"Smooth Talk" is one of the most wildly original (and most intriguing) coming-of-age films I've ever seen. It is based on Joyce Carol Oates' classic short story "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been" whose title refers to the dichotomous period between puberty and adolescence when one is neither a girl nor a woman. In the spirit of that dichotomy, "Smooth Talk" as a film can be separated into two sections one of them dealing with our lead character Connie's (Laura Dern) teetering on the edge of childhood and the other one with her violent push into adulthood.
The first section of the film (taking up roughly two-thirds of the film) introduces us to Connie and her gaggle of girlfriends whose summer break consists entirely of daydreaming and chasing boys around the local mall. At home, like all children their age, they have troubled relationships with their parents. Connie is not a bad kid at all. She's smart, sweet, and well-spoken but her mother Katherine (Mary Kay Place) is still exasperated by her. Recognising the whims of puberty in her she grows ever more impatient waiting for her to grow up. We also sense that Katherine was forced by circumstance to grow up faster than other children and because of this has little consideration for her daughter's growing pains. "I look at you," says Katherine, "I look right in your eyes and all I see are a bunch of trashy daydreams". She has a far better relationship with Connie's older sister June (Elizabeth Berridge) who seems older than her age and does more than her fair share in supporting the household. Still, we understand the mother especially when fights break out over the tiniest things such as washing the dishes. Even though she has little patience for Connie's troubles she understands them better than Connie herself.
She also worries for her daughter's well being which Connie, in her childish manner, frequently overlooks. Director Joyce Chopra frequently reminds us the world is a dangerous place for a young woman. In one scene a group of teenage boys hassle Connie and her friends. "We can handle all three of you," they say as they menacingly corner the girls. In another, they brazenly sit in a car with a creepy older man and think nothing of it. An even more pressing danger is the ever-present potential for sex. One of Connie's friends has gotten pregnant and Katherine and June sit Connie down for "the sex talk". Connie defends herself saying her friend is just a dope. Katherine sees right through her defence. "She's a dope and you're not?" And she's right. Connie is a dope in the sense that she's only playing at adulthood but whenever she's confronted with making adult decisions she baulks. All the make-up in the world and all the revealing halter tops won't make her into a woman if she doesn't mature into it herself.
Which leads us to the second part of the film which is in essence only a single, 20-minute long scene in which Connie is finally confronted with an adult issue and her inability to handle it leads to her violent thrust into adulthood. The issue is called Arnold Friend (Treat Williams), an older man with a taste for younger girls, who shows up unannounced at Connie's doorstep one day. He wants to take her "for a ride" in his car but Connie is indecisive. Here her entire attitude towards sex is revealed. She is intrigued by the idea, the potential, but whenever it comes to it she chickens out. She's not ready yet even though she pretends to be. Friend calls her bluff. He's been watching her and he's seen her flirting with boys and playacting at adulthood. Now he's come to test her. In a tense 20-minute scene Friend slowly reveals his hand and forces Connie to make the decision she's been avoiding. The time for games is over.
"Smooth Talk" is directed by documentarian Joyce Chopra whose previous films had dealt with teenage girls. The best sequences in the film, thus, are the ones which follow Connie and her friends around in their usual nights out. In one superb scene, Connie leaves her house for a "day at the mall" in a conservative, zipped-up jacket only to take it off revealing a bare midriff halter top and tacky jewellery as soon as she's out of sight of her mother. In another, the girls run around the mall like giggling hyenas passing their time checking out the boys' "buns" in a shocking but convincing display of childishness. I also admired the screenplay by Tom Cole especially in the scenes between Connie and her mother. I enjoyed how well both of the characters were built and how the mother was just as complex as her daughter. Never demonised or turned into an antagonist. Their fights and little clashes are some of the most realistic depictions of the troubled relationship a teenager has with their parents I've ever seen.
Also excellent are the performances. Laura Dern is simply stunning as Connie alternating with ease between all the multiple facets of her personality. She is just as convincing when she's being childish as when she's being sweet, and when she's being the most thoughtful of her friends. Mary Kay Place also does a great job portraiting the mother's anxieties and annoyances without ever making her seem overly aggressive or impulsive.
The troubles arise when Arnold Friend shows up. The realistic and touching depictions of Connie's life up to that point had worked so well and built up such a believable atmosphere that the sudden swerve into thriller territory seemed even to me who'd read the short story jarring. Chopra's handling of this long and troubling scene is also somewhat clumsy. There are frequent suggestions that Friend is something more than a creepy stalker, even the Devil himself perhaps, but these suggestions are abrupt and feel entirely out of place in a film which had no slightest suggestion of the supernatural up to that point. The scene with Friend was in the short story obviously allegorical and not to be taken at face value but a scene like that simply does not gel with the previous 80 minutes which felt closer to a documentary than a piece of metaphorical filmmaking. In something like David Lynch's "Blue Velvet," we wouldn't question the Devil showing up in the slightest but his presence in, say, "A Woman Under the Influence" would be incompatible with the rest of the film, to say the least.
Not to mention that the scene runs on for longer than Chopra can keep the tension going. The 20-minute long encounter runs out of steam about halfway through and the lengthy, almost poetic dialogue that Friend and Connie engage in also seems stylistically incompatible with the rest of the film. The idea of the scene's presence in the overall structure is clear, but its execution leaves a lot to be desired.
And still, even with as large an issue as that "Smooth Talk" still impresses. From its wonderful performances to its thoughtful depiction of inter-family relationships, it is a forcefully original and engaging coming-of-age story. And one I suspect is far more honest and important in its brutality than most films in the subgenre which tend to sell the "sweet sixteen" daydream as reality.
3.5/4 - DirectorOriol PauloStarsAdriana UgarteChino DarínJavier GutiérrezTwo storms separated by 25 years. A woman murdered. A daughter missed. Only 72 hours to discover the truth.25-03-2020
"Mirage" is directed and written by Oriol Paulo, so of course it begins on a dark and stormy night. It is 1989 and Nico (Julio Bohigas-Couto), a 12-year old boy has just finished taping his cover of "Time After Time" when he hears screams coming from his neighbour's house. Curious, he wonders over there and finds the doors open. He walks in and finds his neighbour's wife stabbed to death on the floor of the grand hall. Suddenly, the neighbour, a burly half-dressed man named Angel (Javier Gutiérrez), comes barreling down the stairs with a knife in his hands. Nico runs out of the house, onto the road and is killed by a car.
We move 30 years in the future when a storm, curiously similar to the 1989 one is occurring just as Vera (Adriana Ugarte), a dedicated nurse, is moving into the same house Nico used to live in. Her husband David (Álvaro Morte) and her host a small housewarming party during which their friend and new next-door neighbour Aitor (Miquel Fernández) tells them the story of Nico's death. Later that night, just as Vera, awake and thinking of the unfortunate child is watching an old TV she found in the attic, a thunder hits the areal on the house and suddenly she finds herself able to communicate with the boy minutes before his death. Flustered, she manages to convince him not to go to his neighbour's house and thus saves his life. But at what cost?
In Ray Bradbury's seminal sci-fi story "A Sound of Thunder" a time traveller crushed a butterfly and changed the course of history. After saving Nico's life, Vera finds herself in a similar predicament. The next morning she wakes up in a completely different world. A world in which she's an eminent neurosurgeon, unmarried, and without a child. Now she has only 24 hours left before the storm passes to figure out how to change history once more so that both Nico lives and she regains her old life.
About 40 minutes into "Mirage's" 2-hour runtime I found that I was not particularly hooked by this film. I wondered why. After all, it is nicely shot by Xavi Giménez, features a typically boisterous orchestral score from Fernando Velázquez, and it is stylishly directed by Oriol Paulo. But then, slowly, I started seeing the problems the first of which is the fact that the film lacks any kind of mystery. Right from the get-go, we know Angel killed his wife. We also know that Vera is not insane and that she did, in fact, change the course of history, so all the runtime spent on various characters trying to convince her she's having a nervous breakdown are a complete waste of time. So, without any mystery to engage us, this becomes a film about a woman struggling to convince a series of disbelieving characters in things we already know are true, a premise which becomes frustrating very soon.
I was then further frustrated by the fact that our main cast acts like a bunch of complete idiots all the time. For instance, Vera learned about half-way through exactly what it is she needs to do to return to her timeline. Except, instead of doing that she spends the rest of the runtime trying to track down Nico. Why? Curiosity, I suppose, it's never properly explained. When she does eventually track him down we are served a twist so stupendously inane and illogical that it completely shatters the little credulity this film had left. I won't reveal what that twist is but suffice to say that with it in mind the actions of one of the film's protagonist make no sense at all. This protagonist, who knows the truth all the way through the film doesn't speak up and instead continually sabotages and stalls Vera even though he has no motivation to do so at all except the fact director/writer Oriol Paulo needs him to keep his secret until the finale so he can effectively deliver a completely unnecessary twist. It has been a long time since I was so completely unconvinced in a character's motivation. Finally, the film is far too long for the little substance it has and due to its clumsy storytelling and lack of mystery quickly overstays its welcome.
I moderately enjoyed Oriol Paulo's previous directing efforts but I found "Mirage" disappointingly perfunctory. It failed to entertain me, intrigue me, or even keep my attention. Instead, I was bored, confused, and irritated by its proclivity towards repetition and illogical twists. The fine efforts from its cast and crew are continually undermined by an underdeveloped and poorly written script. If I were ever to find myself talking to a younger version of me through an old TV during a storm I'd tell him not to watch "Mirage". As obvious and unfunny as that joke is, it's at least short. "Mirage" doesn't even give us that courtesy. I can't say I'm eagerly awaiting the next film from Oriol Paulo.
2/4 - DirectorSophia TakalStarsKate Lyn SheilSophia TakalLawrence Michael LevineA New Yorker moves to the country with her boyfriend, where her new friendship causes a problem as her partner also takes an interest in the woman.26-03-2020
"Green" begins with a deceptively simple scene. Sebastian (Lawrence Michael Levine), a long-haired 'intellectual type' sits at a New York house party engaged in a boozy discussion on the validity of comparing Philip Roth to Marcel Proust. "He's like a combo of all the most amazing writers that you could ever think of. He's like a chronicler of the post-war 20th century in one oeuvre." His partner Genevieve (Kate Lyn Sheil), sitting next to him but clearly disengaged from the conversation, tries to interject but he shoots her down "I've actually read more than the first thirty pages of "When She Was Good", so I'm qualified to compare them". His manner towards her is not just dismissive, it's worse. It's condescending. Besides clearly and succinctly establishing the nature of the relationship between Sebastian and Genevieve, this opening scene also serves to establish the milieu whence they come. They're the epitome of the would-be New York intellectual crowd, the sort of people who consider attending pretentious art installations a rite of passage. One gets the notion that if they were to step a foot outside their New York comfort zone they'd be like fish out of water, drowning on dry land. But that's exactly what they do. Tasked with writing an article on farming of all things, Sebastian (with Genevieve in tow) moves to a small town in upstate New York where he sublets a house in the middle of nowhere, no wonder seeing himself as some sort of modern-day Robinson Crusoe, an explorer into the wilderness of the outside world.
Horror movies are frequently defined by the nature of their threat. Monster movies, slasher movies, disaster movies, etc. etc. Although "Green" is not something any gorehound would recognise as horror, I found it to be a superb example of the kind of simmering psychological horror film which relies entirely on the imminent feeling of danger rather than its manifestation. The threat in "Green" is thus not a mad serial killer or a vampire but rather Robin (Sophia Takal), a kindly but awkwardly naive country girl who, like an object from outer space, is found by Genevieve passed out drunk on the lawn of Sebastian's new house. She's lost her keys, she says, and the previous subletter had let her keep her spares in the house. They let her in and she retrieves her keys. A few hours later, however, she's back bearing beer as a form of a thank you note. What kind of threat is Robin then to these two city folk? Well, like in any good visitation play which "Green" is, Robin becomes a factor of indirect conflict between the two New Yorkers. Used to a busy life in the bustling city, they'd probably never before had to confront the problems in their relationship. But there's nothing to do at nights in uptown New York and Robin stirs up trouble right away. For Genevieve, she becomes a kind of release valve. We get a sense that Genevieve is pretty tired of Sebastian's pretentiousness and condescension and she forms an unusual friendship with Robin whom she can have actual, down-to-Earth conversations with. In one scene, they compare their experiences with creepy bosses. In another, they compare boyfriends. Finally, Genevieve becomes so free with Robin that she allows herself to utter something she'd never previously felt she was allowed to. "Sebastian is stupid. He's so fucking stupid. He just doesn't listen." And then she laughs uproariously like a person temporarily freed of a heavy load.
But it is Robin's friendship with Sebastian that becomes a subject of conflict. At first, Robin is an easy target for mockery for Sebastian. He openly laughs at her enjoyment of "Batman" films. But slowly a begrudging kind of enjoyment of her simplicity develops in him. He is amused by her and as she helps him learn more about farming he becomes fond of her. Genevieve, however, doesn't see it that way. She has a deep suspicion that Sebastian is seeking in Robin something he can't get in her. A willing kind of intellectual slave, someone so intimidated by his knowledge that they'd willingly submit themselves to his domination, something Genevieve just can't bring herself to do. Genevieve begins fantasizing about Sebastian and Robin's sex life, freer and more satisfying than the one she has with him. We get a feeling she is troubled by a mass of insecurities and that she is just no longer as turned on by Sebastian as she once was. Their sex life is cold and there is no spark between them. In bed, they seek other things. Genevieve wants it over with while Sebastian wants to have passionate, chatty sex. Like in life, he loves talking in bed. Genevieve's jealousy grows at the same speed Robin and Sebastian's friendship does and it culminates in a scene as tense and devastatingly uncomfortable as any I'd seen in modern cinema.
"Green" owes a huge debt to mumblecore cinema with its employment of naturalistic, improvised dialogue, low-fi shooting style, and long scenes of people talking. However, it is utterly successful in employing these traits. Writer/director Sophia Takal (who also plays Robin) manages to find the perfect rhythm for these scenes to seem natural and progress slowly but never lose the subtext generated by the immense tension between the characters. It is not an easy task but she masters it with apparent ease. In the acting realm, however, it is Kate Lyn Sheil who steals the show. She conveys the sense of an emotional storm raging within Genevieve without ever raising her voice or making a single melodramatic gesture. The subtlety of her layered performance is in a word impressive. Lawrence Michael Levine is aptly annoying as Sebastian, and Sophia Takal portrays Robin with a kind of obliviousness that makes her both endearing and yet slightly unconvincing. She comes across as being a little too naive and too stupid, like a city writer's idea of a country girl, but within the narrative context, even this overly simple characterisation serves its purpose. Her accent leaves a lot to be desired for (being about as convincing as Dick Van Dyke's cockney) but it is a credit to Sophia Takal the writer that I was not ever distracted by Sophia Takal the actress. In other words, her material overcomes the weaknesses of her performance.
"Green" has its fair share of problems. From the overly simplified characterisation of Robin to an infuriatingly elliptical finale, but the tension Takal manages to generate just from these three characters chatting up a storm is incredible. This is the kind of film whose simmering tension and growing discomfort really get under your skin, and by the time it was over I was properly rattled. Like I said earlier, this is not a gorehound's idea of horror but the slow-burning anger of jealousy growing inside Genevieve terrified me more than a slow-growing alien inside an astronaut ever could. The threat in "Green" is real, this-worldly, and terrifyingly imminent.
3.5/4 - DirectorSophia TakalStarsMackenzie DavisCaitlin FitzGeraldLawrence Michael LevineTwo women with differing degrees of success travel north from Los Angeles to Big Sur for a weekend vacation. Both see the trip as an opportunity to reconnect after years of competition and jealousy have driven a wedge between them.27-03-2020
In her second feature, Sophia Takal repeats the winning formula of her previous microbudget nailbiter "Green". Two characters, a remote location, and an unspoken simmering tension slowly reaching boiling point. In "Always Shine", the two leads are best friends, both actresses, who find themselves at opposite ends of the success spectrum.
Beth (Caitlin FitzGerald) is at one point described as a "withering flowering". While the description is meant to be derisive it is also strikingly accurate. In a word, she's a pushover. A good little girl with a bow tie in her hair who never quite grew up. This is the trait that explains her success in the movie industry, an industry where dissent is unwanted and obedience is rewarded. In the film's opening scene, a producer is telling her that the role he's offering her requires nudity. "Yeah, Adele explained it to me." "Fairly extensive nudity," he insists. "the way we're gonna shoot's gonna be very verite. A lot of long takes." Beth wavers for a second but then responds: "Uh, yeah, no, that's fine." But it's obviously not fine. She's not comfortable with the offer and clearly regrets accepting it later on but she just can't say no. She just can't bear disappointing others, being anything other than pleasing.
Anna (Mackenzie Davis) is her friend and her total opposite. We first meet her having a fiery argument with a car mechanic. "The guy who gave me the estimate didn't say anything about any fucking oxygen sensor!" The difference between the women couldn't be more obvious. While Beth spends the entire film apologising for any slightest perceived transgression she makes, Anna is the one being apologised to. Her no-nonsense attitude and unwillingness to conform to her assigned gender stereotype make her intimidating to both men and women alike. In a clawingly uncomfortable scene, she slowly alienates a potential suitor (Michael Lowry) with her inquisitive nature. While he goes on about some sort of a quasi-religious men's getaway he attends she detects bullshit and simply won't keep quiet. Threatened, the man turns his attention to Beth who in her demure and sheepish way accepts his advances without any resistance.
The title of the film refers to the requirement placed on women to "always shine", or as the opening quote from some antiquated women's guide puts it "it is their duty to be attractive and charming". Here-in lies the failure of Beth's career. The film is careful to point out that both women are equally talented, equally attractive, and equally willing to work. However, it is purely the difference in their attitudes that makes one successful and the other resentful. In an industry of obedience and shine, there's no room for someone like Beth who speaks her mind and is unwilling to make herself attractive for the kind of producers who call the actresses they audition "honey" and "sweetheart".
A lesser writer would have left it at that, created conflict entirely out of Anna's jealousy over Beth's success and the criticism of a system that judges women by their agreeability would have been as clear as day. But Lawrence Michael Levine's screenplay is a whole lot smarter and more complex than that. The women are not just jealous of each other, they deeply desire to be like each other. Beth wants Anna's toughness and resilience, the bravery to fight back against those who oppress her. Anna, on the other hand, wants to be more like Beth because she feels that this is the only way she could achieve happiness in life. By being agreeable and malleable. By shining for the men who want her to and forming herself by their standards.
Unlike most Hollywood-style films which build their plots around major events, "Always Shine" is built around brief moments of awkwardness and resentment. As it frequently happens in life, instead of lashing out at the system oppressing them, Beth and Anna lash out at each other. At first, their arguments are friendly and petty. Beth forgot to tell Anna that a friend of a friend said they like her etc. Then, they grow more and more serious. In an unexpectedly tense scene, Anna finds out Beth's picture is on a front cover of a magazine. "I can't believe you wouldn't have mentioned this before," she says. Beth tries to play it down feeling that if she'd bragged about it she might hurt Anna. "I really, really don't think it's that big a deal." This, however, is precisely the wrong thing to say. Anna, annoyed at what she thinks is Beth's ungratefulness for the success Anna so desires curtly retorts "it's a really big deal" and leaves the room.
I won't spoil the rest of the tension crescendo that occurs in "Always Shine", but suffice it to say it niftily blends "Single White Female" with "Mullholand Drive" without ever devolving into a sleazy slasher like the former or becoming so elliptical as to seem arbitrary like the latter. The quiet menacing style of Levine's screenplay is both elegant and deeply disturbing and for that alone, he deserves a commendation.
Sophia Takal directs the screenplay with amazing assurance and skill for a second-time filmmaker. With this film, she proves what I'd already suspected after seeing "Green". Namely, that she's a master of growing tension and unspoken conflict. The way she allows them to built within a long, unbroken shot through character interaction alone is amazingly effective. I audibly groaned all the way through the aforementioned date scene due to a deeply discomforting clawing feeling of awkwardness in the pit of my stomach. I haven't felt this uncomfortable and tense watching a movie in a long, long time. Takal, herself an actress, clearly knows how to direct her two stars and the resulting performances are captivating. It is always challenging to make long dialogue scenes interesting but Caitlin Fitzgerald and Mackenzie Davis succeed with memorable results. A long, intentionally drawn-out scene in which they rehearse a scene from a dumb horror film Beth is supposed to star in is mesmerisingly tense because of the way Fitzgerald and Davis squeeze every last drop of subtext from the ludicrous lines they're saying. Just the way Anna looks at Beth is enough to read all the deep anger, jealously, and sadness she feels.
I will give "Always Shine" one of the greatest compliments I can give any movie by saying it is the closest anyone in the West has come to making a Bergmanesque film since Robert Redford's masterpiece "Ordinary People". Its characters are complex and the subtle way in which they interact while tension grows and grows results in one of the most savage critiques of modern society I have ever seen. Genre-bending, fiercely innovative, and devastatingly uncomfortable, "Always Shine" is easily one of the defining films of the decade and makes me eager to see what its director does next.
4/4 - DirectorSophia TakalStarsSuki WaterhouseCarly ChaikinKirbyA group of old friends gather for a girl's night on New Years Eve. But as they begin to rehash old memories, many of the gripes they've been harboring manifest in murderous ways.28-03-2020
After two such intense and disturbing films as "Green" and "Always Shine", Sophia Takal's "New Year, New You" feels like a step back. It has all the themes and elements of her previous films such as jealousy, friendship, unspoken tension, and people in isolation forced to confront their issues but now in a more straightforward and mainstream package. Whereas "Green" and "Always Shine" weren't afraid of experimenting with genre boundaries and standardised rules of film formating, "New Year, New You" embraces the slasher formula with a somewhat disappointing sense of conformism.
At first, the film seems like a retread of "Always Shine" with its plot revolving around three friends on a getaway trying to avoid facing their jealousy over the success of the fourth one. The friends are the obviously depressed Alexis (Suki Waterhouse), the kindly Kayla (Kirby Howell-Baptiste), and jolly Chloe (Melissa Bergland). The fourth friend is the super successful YouTube influencer Danielle (Carly Chaikin) who seems oblivious to the jealousy and tension brewing among her three high school friends who have reunited to celebrate New Year's Eve. However, soon a hidden motive is revealed for the reunion. Danielle, who seems as sweet and caring as an angel, used to be a horrible bully and is deemed by Alexis responsible for the suicide of the fifth member of their high-school group, Kelsey. Now, the girls have formed a pact to make Danielle confess her appalling behaviour in front of her audience of millions. But Danielle will not be as easy to terrorise as they thought.
The most interesting aspect of "New Year, New You" is its satirical playing with the fairly novel concept of an influencer. An online personality so popular with their (usually very young) audience that they can have significant influence over their lifestyle choices. When Danielle goes dairy-free, her audience goes dairy-free. When Danielle starts drinking freshly squeeze juice, her audience starts drinking freshly squeezed juice. As the film goes on, however, and Danielle starts pitting her friends against each other it becomes obvious her influence reaches beyond mere dietary advice. It is an obvious joke, perhaps, and not as insightful as we've come to expect from a Sophia Takal film, but fairly effective.
The main problem here is in its characters. The screenplay written by Takal and Adam Gaines gives most of its characters very little complexity to play. Kayla and Chloe reveal little depth beyond the one-word descriptions I gave them in my plot summary and when Danielle reveals her true face it is that of a stereotypical movie alpha bitch. This is not a slight on the performance of Carly Chaikin which is actually the highpoint of the film. With her unyielding smile and a devilish sparkle behind the eyes she successfully turns Danielle's fake affability into a genuinely disturbing trait. But while the villain is good, the good guys manage to hit all the wrong notes. Kirby Howell-Baptiste as Kayla is in a word boring while Melissa Bergland as Chloe attempts to channel Melissa McCarthy but is neither funny nor likeable. Then there's Suki Waterhouse, the only actress given a character with any trace of depth. Alexis is meant to be someone haunted by her past, depressed and disturbed by the thoughts of the success she might have had had she not met Danielle. Waterhouse, sadly, evokes none of this. Her performance as Alexis is so one-note and over-the-top she comes across as hysterical rather than haunted. All of this is in stark contrast with the superb performances Sophia Takal managed to evoke from her previous casts, but I'm sure that with Mackenzie Davis or Kate Lyn Sheil this film could have been a whole lot more effective.
Even with all these problems, "New Year, New You" is not a bad film. It is, admittedly, a forgettable one. When "Always Shine" finished, I was left with an uncomfortable clawing sensation in the pit of my stomach and its images and confrontations stayed with me all through the night. When "New Year, New You" finished, I switched it off and went on with my day. But it would be dishonest of me to say that I didn't have fun with it while it lasted. Sophia Takal and cinematographer Lyn Moncrief make sure it is a craftily shot production full of disquieting zooms and dramatic close-ups. It is also a fast ride with several suspenseful scenes and some laughs to be had along the way.
Sophia Takal is masterful at crafting drawn-out, uncomfortable moments built around unspoken resentments and that is what this film sorely needed. There is one such scene when Danielle shoves a camera in Alexis' face forcing her to become a part of her cultish YouTube world and it is one of the film's most successful moments. More of those kinds of scenes and less running around with a knife would have done "New Year, New You" a world of good.
I don't begrudge Sophia Takal's more mainstream approach to her old material in this film. What I do begrudge it are its cardboardy characters and poor performances. I also wish it were a film with more complexity, a film which truly examined the issues it brings up such as the sheer insanity of the influencer concept rather than just use it to motivate its characters to stab each other to death. "New Year, New You" is a fun missed opportunity.
2.5/4 - DirectorSophia TakalStarsImogen PootsAleyse ShannonLily DonoghueA group of female students is stalked by a stranger during their Christmas break. That is until the young sorority pledges discover that the killer is part of an underground college conspiracy.28-03-2020
After two disturbing and memorable indie features, Sophia Takal's foray into the mainstream is seeming more and more like a misstep. What made "Green" and "Always Shine" work so well were their fearless subversives and disregard for ridiculous storytelling rules. There was little exposition, no clear endings, and no major events. Suspense and tension came from little moments between characters whose inner turmoils and resentments remained largely unspoken. Takal's latest two films, "New Year, New You" and "Black Christmas" both attempt to recreate the appeal of her earlier films but the attempts are watered down by the requirements of making a mass-appeal movie. "Always Shine" was brilliant, disturbing, memorable, original but it had no chance of making millions at the box office. Thus "New Year, New You" and "Black Christmas", both produced by Blumhouse, are inundated with clumsy attempts to make them accessible to a wide audience. Cue long exposition speeches, straightforward (read cardboardy) characters, and scenes which present the ideas behind these movies so plastically and obviously that they are drained of any complexity.
The idea behind "Black Christmas" (a film which shares nothing but the title with the 1974 Bob Clark classic) is fascinating. In it, a group of sorority women (this is insistent terminology) are hunted down and killed by a group of fraternity bros who seem to be turned evil by a mysterious black goo which they use to draw triangles on each other's foreheads. I absolutely love the idea of toxic masculinity being shown as a sort of toxin which infects anyone it comes into contact with. I am also deeply intrigued by seeing what is essentially a slasher movie deal with the subject of the MeToo movement and the ever prescient topic of campus rape. And yet this film's execution betrays its fantastic ideas.
For one, all of these sorority women we're supposed to care and root for are blandly written and totally interchangeable. So when they band together to fight toxic masculinity it's not the cathartic moment the filmmakers think it is because we can't remember which woman is which. This also seriously hampers all of the film's supposedly suspenseful moments. I am surprised to be writing this paragraph because Sophia Takal's films thus far have uniformly been character-driven. Here, however, the screenplay by Takal and April Wolfe gives none of its protagonists any character seriously undermining their own message.
The screenplay shows itself as flawed again in just how awful the dialogue is. First of all, the film is full of hamfisted exposition. Every ten or so minutes, a character will come on and recap everything that we've seen thus far just in case you forgot or were late to the screening. At the end of the film, the main villain even gives a lengthy, exposition-heavy speech which seems to be straight out of an Austin Powers spoof or a 60s Bond flick. Secondly and most annoyingly, the film is as subtle in its political messaging as a Ken Loach film. Every other line contains a buzzword all of which are used at some point from patriarchy to narrative and most of them are spouted by Kris (Aleyse Shannon), one of the most one-note and chatty characters I've ever seen. Beyond being a radical feminist she has no other character traits. I bet her description in the screenplay read simply "Kris, radical feminist".
Finally, the film shows no sensitivity or complexity in the depiction of its feminist premise. In this film, all men are vicious rapist and all women fierce feminist who hate them but are oppressed by them. There are two exceptions to this rule. The one male character not shown as a villain is Riley's crush Landon (Caleb Eberhardt). Landon is so ineffectual and subservient that he is about as believable and nuanced as one of those black characters played by guys in blackface from 1930s B-movies. In modern speak, he has no agency. Meanwhile, the one female character who isn't a fierce feminist but "embraces her gender stereotype" is treated at best like a victim to be pitied and at worst as just as bad as the men she worships, i.e. a villain. The message is clear, you're either a fierce feminist or a bad guy. No grey zones here.
These flaws are pretty damning of any film and they do pretty much ruin "Black Christmas'" chances of getting a positive review, but I didn't hate the film nearly as much as I thought I would have given all the negative reviews it's gotten. I do have to point out, though, that I am a fully paid-up Sophia Takal fanboy and some of the following praise should be read with that in my mind no matter how faint it is.
"Black Christmas" is not a stupid movie and in my book that is commendable. It has an agenda, a reason for existing. Now that agenda may be entirely hamfistedly and poorly delivered but just the fact it's there raises this film above most other slashers. Also, like I said, I found a lot of its ideas quite fascinating and innovative. I also enjoyed the film's visual style created on a tight budget by Sophia Takal and Mark Schwartzbard, the cinematographer behind "Always Shine". There are several very elegant shots in this movie including a neat little homage to "The Exorcist III", a criminally underrated horror masterpiece. The cast should also be commended for managing to wring out some emotion from the horribly written dialogue. Imogen Poots especially does a convincing job portraying her character's trauma after a sexual assault. On the other side, Cary Elwes obviously has a lot of fun camping it up as a misogynist professor whose character is about as subtle as the atheist villain in "God's Not Dead".
Finally, I had no problem with the film's PG-13 rating. In fact, I'm glad it is not a gory film as the blood and guts heavy sideshow approach would feel very out of place in what is otherwise clearly intended (results aside) as a serious message-driven film. I did, however, have a problem with some questionable editing choices, obviously compromises made to turn what was shot as an R-rated film into a PG-13 one. Several scenes end abruptly, obviously as to avoid showing any blood, and several jump cuts are made within otherwise straightforward scenes for the same reason.
"Black Christmas" is heavy-handed, often silly, and rarely scary, but I was impressed by its conviction and premise. It is, however, hard to look past its many blatant filmmaking flaws. I hate giving directors I admire bad reviews and the one thing I really wish to stress here is that I hope with all my heart Sophia Takal goes back to form making small, irreverent, subversive films with limited appeal but massive impact. Compared to "Green" and "Always Shine", "Black Christmas" is trash but compared to most of its commercial contemporaries such as "Countdown" or "Polaroid" it is almost a modern classic.
1.5/4 - DirectorLeigh WhannellStarsElisabeth MossOliver Jackson-CohenHarriet DyerWhen Cecilia's abusive ex takes his own life and leaves her his fortune, she suspects his death was a hoax. As a series of coincidences turn lethal, Cecilia works to prove that she is being hunted by someone nobody can see.29-03-2020
Adrian Griffin (Oliver Jackson-Cohen) is one of the leading scientists in the field of optics. A genius, wealthy beyond his wildest dreams, living in a gorgeous designer house with a beautiful wife, a dog, and a sea view. Adrian is also a narcissistic sociopath, a manipulator, and a domestic abuser who has turned the life of his partner Cecilia (Elisabeth Moss) into living hell. Now, she's decided to escape. Under the cover of night, she drugs Adrian scales the concrete walls surrounding their estate and escapes with the help of her overprotective sister Emily (Harriet Dyer).
Two weeks later, Cecilia is living under police protection when she gets word that Adrian has committed suicide. But a series of strange occurrences in the house she's now living in make her doubt his death. With things disappearing and reappearing, someone taking photos of her while she sleeps, Cecilia, haunted by a disquieting sense of being watched, realises Adrian has somehow found a way to make himself invisible and is now stalking her.
The domestic abuse twist to the story is, in the age of MeToo, incredibly timely but I have to admit I was at first a little queasy about director Leigh Whannell creating a commercial horror film about domestic abuse. It seemed to me fairly exploitative and insensitive. However, the excellent central performance from Elisabeth Moss and the film's strangely cathartic finale eased my worries and convinced me that "The Invisible Man" has something more on its mind then jump scares and mass appeal.
As a suspense thriller, the film's first half is incredibly well made. Leigh Whannell utilises all the tricks from John Carpenter's magic bag from the uncomfortable wide-shot framing insinuating that the stalker is hiding in plain sight to smooth camera moves behind and around our protagonist which may or may not be our killer's POV. There are a few jump scares along the way which I didn't enjoy but far more effective is Whannell's use of silences when all sound in the film goes quiet and the audience stops breathing for a second or two, intently listening, listening to the sound of footsteps. Elisabeth Moss absolutely sells her role as the haunted woman on the brink of a nervous breakdown. Due to her sympathetic, terrified yet never hysterical performance we identify with and are for the character of Cecilia. Also superlative are Stefan Duscio's atmospheric, blue-tinted cinematography, and Benjamin Wallfisch's booming Bernard Herrmann inspired orchestral score.
All the film's best set-pieces are in its first half including a tense game of cat-and-mouse between Cecilia and the invisible man all through the house and a midpoint twist which involves a kill as shocking as Kevin Spacey's demise in "L.A. Confidential". Watching these scenes, I really hoped Whannell would contain the film within these claustrophobic, intimate set-pieces. Just Cecilia and her stalker because the film works best when it is quietly menacing. Sadly, in the film's second half, the film turns into an action-heavy sci-fi extravaganza along the lines of Whannell's previous film "Upgrade" and this half works significantly less well then the first.
I won't go into the plot mechanics which lead us to this point, but a large chunk of the film's second half is taken up by a drawn-out action sequence in which the invisible man fights a series of security guards who come at him down a long hallway one by one in what can only be described as looking suspiciously like a video game level. This scene runs on for far too long and is endlessly repetitive. I mean, for how long can seeing (or rather not seeing) the invisible man punch a security guard be interesting? The answer is not long. A series of catch-and-release fight scenes and foot and car chases ensue and I must admit I snoozed through a lot of them. After the film's tense and disquieting first half, I was disappointed by its loud and decidedly unscary second half. The visual effects are on point but this shift in gears is so jarring and misplaced I was left wondering if maybe the projectionist had accidentally played a reel from a different movie. A Jason Bourne film perhaps. Or "Upgrade 2". Then I remembered cinemas don't use film reels anymore and that I'm watching this film at home.
Thankfully the film does pick itself up for a very surprising and cathartic finale which is stylistically and tonally a lot more in line with the first half. After a pretty predictable and disappointing twist which ended the long, long action sequence proceeding it, this quiet and dramatic climax saves the film and gives me something to remember it by.
Leigh Whannell's "The Invisible Man" is an interesting and well-made film which falters in its second half. Perhaps, Whannell was pressured by the studio to introduce more action to what should have been a very intimate, tense horror movie along the lines of Polanski's "Repulsion" or Sophia Takal's "Always Shine". Or maybe the misstep is his own. Either way, it extends the film which should have been a tight 90-minutes into a drawn-out 2 hours and significantly decreases the tension built-up in its first half. But the first half is excellent as is the climax. Also, it is impossible not to be impressed by Moss' performance and the film's undeniable technical achievements. In short, "The Invisible Man" is far from perfect but it is an intriguing, clever, and well-made thriller.
3/4 - DirectorKore-eda HirokazuStarsMasaharu FukuyamaMachiko OnoYôko MakiRyota is a successful workaholic businessman. When he learns that his biological son was switched with another boy after birth, he faces the difficult decision to choose his true son or the boy he and his wife have raised as their own.30-03-2020
Here is a tender, intelligent movie which studiously examines the complex question of what defines the family bond. Do we relate to our children based on nature or nurture? Do we make them who they are or do they come premade in our image?
The film revolves around two families, one rich, one poor. The head of the rich family is a typical Asian tiger parent, a father (Masaharu Fukuyama) who gives his son goals which if not met will incur his unhidden disappointment. He spends most of the time working, believing as he put it that providing for one's family is far more important than spending time with them which means there's a lot more money than love and genuine human connection in that particular family. The other family's patriarch (Lily Franky) is the absolute opposite of the rich man. He's a jovial, sweet, loving man who spends every waking hour with his children even allowing them to peer over his shoulder as he works. His family is, like him, loving, connected, and caring. They spend time with each other, love each other, and play with each other and even though they don't have a lot of money, it seems almost like they survive on love alone.
Then the bombshell hits. Six years ago, when their sons were born, a nurse mix-up led to their babies getting switched. What are they to do? Should they switch their sons or just return to normal, pretend like nothing's happened. Well, while the poor family obviously has enough love for both the boys and doesn't seem to much care whether their son is also their biological son, the rich family is in turmoil. The father has been deeply disappointed by his son's failure as a pianist and at his disinterest for anything but video games. Encouraged by the possibility that his biological son is more like him, driven and talented, he pushes for the switch.
"Like Father, Like Son" is a surprisingly perceptive family drama. Just the differing attitudes of the two fathers entirely change the moods of their households and everyone within them. The house of the distant, cold tiger parent is cold and sad. Photographed with alienating symmetry and entirely dressed in light blues and greys it is a house sorely lacking in love. His son, too young to know exactly what is happening, but old enough to feel the sadness is withdrawn, quiet, and shy. His wife (Machiko Ono) feeling as much pressure to be perfect as the son, seems like she's about to crack any moment. When the news of the switch comes, she blames herself for not having known. "Any real mother would," she says. The other house is diametrically opposite. Like the jovial, fun-loving family, their living space is messy, confusing, full of nooks, crannies, tiny rooms, and hallways leading nowhere. Painted with various bright colours, reds and greens, they are a colourful, warm, loving bunch. Whenever they're on screen, the camera seems to liven up with them. The framing becomes less precise, the shots closer and fuller, movement is finally introduced.
The way writer/director Hirokazu Kore Eda deals with the central theme is also both careful and insightful. However, after he shows us that even the previously withdrawn child which grew up in the rich household becomes jovial and open after a few months with the poor family it becomes clear he stands firmly on the side of nurture over nature. But he doesn't exclude the possibility of growth even for the emotionally distant father. Even though his relationship with his family leaves a lot to be desired for, there are strong hints at a much tenderer person hiding underneath the firm exterior. His love for music is one, another one is the love of video games he shares with his son, this being the only time he spends with him.
Besides a tender family drama, it is also incredibly daunting to see this film as something of a political allegory. The strong contrast between the alienated rich who are preoccupied with setting themselves goals and mercilessly working towards them with their eye only on the profit and the warm, loving poor whose lives revolve around love, happiness, and togetherness invite comparisons between a capitalist society and a socialist society.
The acting in the film is top-notch. The two fathers, Masaharu Fukuyama and Lily Franky are excellent at giving off precisely the right vibes which then reverberate throughout their families without ever giving up the complexities of their characters. Neither of them allows for a one-note reading of their character. The rich father is not an antagonist here, just a conflicted man who didn't have much love in his life and who doesn't seem able to give any either. The poor father, on the other hand, is no superhero. He's just a guy who loves to and knows how to spend time with children. The two wives, Machiko Ono and Yoko Maki are great in showing us how the atmospheres dictated by the fathers affect their own personalities. While the rich wife is colourless, almost lacking in any personality beyond that of a "picture-perfect wife", the poor wife is a force to be reckoned with having been allowed to grow inside her family unit both as an individual and as a mother.
Technically, the film is superbly executed with both the cinematography by Mikiya Takimoto and the production design by Keiko Mitsumatsu being put in the service of portraying the two families.
My sole criticism of the film, though not necessarily a small one, is that it is, in my opinion, too tightly focused on the rich father. His character is the one which is explored in most detail and it is his experience in this story that we follow. I understand that he is the one who changes the most in the duration of the story which, following the classic rules of dramaturgy necessarily makes him the lead, but I really wish Kore Eda had spent more time further detailing the poor father and the two wives all of who are nicely sketched but lack in the fine detail given to the rich father. It would have certainly made for a more complex and thus more intriguing movie had we been allowed to see the emotional experience other characters in the film go through as well.
Still, "Like Father, Like Son" is a tender yet insightful and often hard-hitting exploration of family dynamics in an alienated world. What I appreciated the most about Kore Eda's film is that it manages to be both emotional and intellectual. It is a film which will both leave you in tears and with a lot on your mind. It is both cathartic and questioning, inspiring and inquisitive. With its well-thought-out direction, memorable performances, and an engaging, emotional plot, "Like Father, Like Son" is a film which will get under your skin and which you won't soon forget. And you won't want to either.
3.5/4 - DirectorDamián SzifronStarsDarío GrandinettiMaría MarullMónica VillaSix short stories that explore the extremities of human behavior involving people in distress.31-03-2020
Comprised of six segments revolving around the eternal struggle of the small vs. the big, rage, revenge, and that moment when you become as mad as hell and you're not gonna take it anymore, Damián Szifron's "Wild Tales" is a shining example that an omnibus movie absolutely can work, but only if there's a strong creative presence behind the camera to unify the stories into a thematically and stylistically satisfying whole. Szifron succeeds with flying colours.
And speaking of flying, the first story, which takes place before the opening credits and is by far the shortest, takes place entirely on a plane. Straightforward, simple, yet howlingly funny and insanely original, it can be seen almost as a kind of a mission statement for the film. These stories will all revolve around extreme circumstances, feature insane twists, and end in the most bleakly comedic manner possible. This one begins when two strangers on a plane (Darío Grandinetti and María Marull) strike up a conversation and find out they both share an acquaintance, a certain failed musician named Pasternak. Suddenly, all the passengers on the plane chime in saying that they too know and have previously in some way hurt, Mr Pasternak.
My reaction to this story beautifully exemplifies my reactions to all the stories. At first, I found the plotline contrived and unfunny, then when the first twist rolled around I was in disbelief, then when all hell broke loose I laughed so hard I was driven to tears. But most importantly, once the story ended, I found myself thinking about its themes. A tough act to pull off but Szifron pulls it off six times in a row. While this first and shortest story is not nearly as insane and memorable as the other five, it serves as a perfect introduction to the film and resolves its plot in an elegant and darkly funny manner.
The second story is set in a roadside diner where a waitress (Julieta Zylberberg) recognises that night's only customer as Cuenca (César Bordón), a man who had earlier hurt her mother. The night cook (Rita Cortese), a shady character in her own right suggests what she deems to be the only possible way to get rid of such rats. Rat poison. While the waitress is horrified by the thought, the cook is determined and can't be stopped. This is the weakest of the six stories, but it is still head-and-shoulders above any festival winning short I've seen in recent years. The central idea, that certain people are so horrible that they should be killed on sight, like vermin, is very well handled so that it is both savagely funny and thought-provoking. Also, Rita Cortese impresses as the unstoppable cook on a mission to rid the world of rats even if the story's conclusion is ultimately unsatisfying and it never reaches the levels of intensity the other stories do.
Szifron smartly follows up the weakest story with the best. In what can only be described as a black comedy spoof of "Duel", two drivers (Leonardo Sbaraglia and Walter Donado) on a dirt road 60 miles from anywhere engage in a brutal game of oneupmanship after one hurls insults at the other. What starts with a mildly unpleasant exchange on the road quickly yet absolutely convincingly evolves into full-on bloodshed with the two men determined to kill each other in whatever way they can.
In a strikingly intense and devastatingly hilarious 20-or-so-minutes, mostly played out in real-time, as each of the men's stunts grows more and more extreme, the laughs keep increasing. Szifron beautifully doses the amount of insanity in this one, increasing the dose every time one of the men makes a move. It is a masterclass in tension and black comedy, elegantly walking the line between hilarity and horror.
The fourth story begins with a boom. Literally. As a giant silo is demolished we are introduced to explosives expert Simón Fischer (Ricardo Darín) who is in a rush because he has to make it to his daughter's birthday. What bad luck then that his car has been impounded. Never mind, though, he'll just go to the DMV and pick it up for a fee, right? Well, no. Unfortunately, Mr Fischer is Argentina's answer to Larry David, a man so fed up with bureaucracy he decides he's had enough and will not allow the DMV to impound his car when there was no sign letting him know he'd parked in a "no parking area". As he hits more and more stone walls in his righteous struggle, Fischer's actions become increasingly over-the-top.
This story can best be described as a Kafkaesque twist on Joel Schumacher's "Falling Down". Again, Szifron proves himself a master of gradation. From something as commonplace as getting your car impounded he builds the story to the point where you can scarcely believe your eyes at the events unfolding before you. Spearheaded by a typically excellent performance from Ricardo Darín in a very identifiable role, this is the most emotional of all the stories.
And just when you thought you'd seen it all or that you could perhaps predict the twists in the fifth story, Sziforn hits you with a mood whiplash and opens the next segment with as dark a tragedy as possible. The hit-and-run murder of a pregnant woman. The killer is Santiago (Alan Daicz), the son of a rich businessman Mauricio (Oscar Martínez) who quickly sets up a scheme to absolve his son of any guilt. He'll pay first his gardner (Germán de Silva) to take the blame, a crooked lawyer (Osmar Núñez) to get him off, and then a local inspector (Diego Velázquez) to make it all stick. So far, this story has not been funny at all. We're appalled at the actions of Mauricio, and still reeling from the shocking death of a woman and her unborn child. It is here, however, that I was finally convinced beyond a shadow of a doubt what a master filmmaker Damián Szifron is. As each of the men involved in the scheme begins asking for more and more money, and as his son starts seeming more and more unappreciative at the trouble his father is taking for him, Mauricio becomes more and more despondent with the whole idea until eventually, he decides to give his son up and do the right thing. But his three co-conspirators who've smelled big money won't let him get off that easily and will have to convince him to carry on with the scheme.
The ease with which Szifron shifts gears from high tragedy to hilarious comedy in this segment is a sight to behold. I began teary-eyed at the hit-and-run murder and ended up crying from laughter. Oscar Martínez is simply stunning as the manipulative millionaire. He commands every scene he's in and the slow change of mind he makes about the scheme is so wittily and convincingly played I went, without a second thought, from being horrified by his actions to supporting him.
The film ends with what is easily the craziest and most rollercoaster-like of all the stories, and that is saying a lot. In the middle of her wedding reception, a bride (Erica Rivas) finds out her newlywed husband (Diego Gentile) has been cheating on her. An absolute melodramatic swivet ensues with what seems like a twist-a-minute until the entire kerfuffle is resolved on the dance floor in a nigh-abstract Pasolini-esque sequence during which every piece of glass in the reception room is broken, all eyes end up filled with tears, and a couple has sex next to the destroyed wedding cake. This short is so utterly next-level insane that the only suitable way to describe it is to say it rivals "The Deer Hunter" for the best wedding sequence of all time.
Every decade or so, a movie comes along which is so devastatingly perfect and wildly original that any praise you heap on it is meaningless. "Wild Tales" is just such a film. With its countless twists, extreme situations, and identifiable characters I cannot imagine a more perfect comedy. And yet it also has some very pertinent comments to make on the society we live in. Each of the stories is a striking commentary on either the way we thoughtlessly hurt each other, the way we mindlessly compete with each other, or the way we're mistreated by those in positions of power. It makes you think while you roll around the floor in convulsions from laughing. In the past decade, the comedy genre has become filled with overlong, tediously ad-libbed, virtue signalling bores. "Wild Tales" is nothing like them. It is a film more akin to the Neil Simon laughatons of old but with a nastier, darker edge far more suited to this diseased world we live in today. It is the comedy masterpiece of the decade.
4/4