Change Your Image
benjamin-enkler
Reviews
Efter brylluppet (2006)
Still #1
Ten years I have been watching this film. I very clearly remember seeing it for the first time as the dvd was mailed to me through my Blockbuster Online membership. I'd loved Mads Mikkelsen for his turn as Tristan in 2004's King Arthur and had looked for him as much as possible since then. I wasn't ready for After the Wedding. It changed everything for me. It changed how I watch film, how I experienced it. It changed what I would generally even look for in a movie.
Susanne Bier directed something so profound, so true and beautiful, she could have never made another movie again in her entire life and would still be someone I would hail for my entire lifetime. EVERY. SINGLE. PERFORMANCE is a 10. While I could slather accolades on Mads and Rolf, I have to say after 10 years of watching this film 3 times a year, it is the without-peer Sidse Babett-Knudsen who is the true power of this story. And it is no fluke, either. 3 seasons of Borgen later, she truly shines as a global treasure. After the Wedding film pulls you through every emotion worth having, feels intimate and honest, and never takes an easy way out. My all time favorite film.
One scene in particular, between Helene and Jorgen along in a bedroom, is the stuff of cinematic legend. Powerful, raw and real.
And it introduced me to Sigur Ros. Nothing wrong with that!
Stray Dolls (2019)
Promising Debut
I had a chance to see this film at its Tribeca premiere. Between an exceedingly hot, crammed theater, predictably obnoxious casual audience members (at least in my section) alternating between their phones and conversation with who they were attending with, a picture that suffered from a somewhat older projection bulb, and not the greatest sound, there was a lot working against a proper viewing. That said, I left with pretty positive marks about Sinha's debut film. I imagined I'd watch it again someday under more agreeable circumstances. In terms of lazy, number reviews, I would have dropped a 6-6.5. It was fine.
We all have those films that, on first viewing, for whatever assortment of reasons, don't fully land. Off the top of my head I can think of Steve Jobs, The Martian, The Boxer, Mission: Impossible Ghost Protocol. I put Stray Dolls in this category. I left feeling glad I'd seen it for general reasons, but wasn't much thinking about it after a week, like the aforementioned movies. But every now in then this little flicker in my head would remind me of it, and seeing it on Amazon to purchase the other night, I was immediately compelled.
I am grateful for this because I can comfortably say what I've learned about these other films: I failed them. Not the other way around. My home viewing of Stray Dolls, distraction free, gave me something special. Rich, lush imagery, sometimes reminiscent of visual darlings like In the Mood for Love or Capernaum, heighten, but never make artificial, the reality of where this is set: a Podunk Nowhere-Town in upstate New York. Every now and then a touch of The Place Beyond the Pines struck me. The coldness and hopelessness of the area permeates.
Stray Dolls presents an unfortunately very real depiction of the immigrant story in the North East. The insidious oppression, often by other immigrants pretending help. The dehumanizing those who clean the hotels, seen as objects to control with paltry amounts of money. The utter lack of protections. The loneliness. This movie lands.
Cynthia Nixon, who I found distracting in a bad way my first viewing, is actually not that at all. She gives a solid, exhausted 'villain' turn, and it works. She is still fighting for this illusion of an American Dream, and has a corrupt dingy hotel business to show for it. She finds ways to keep advantage over others, isn't against exploiting the less fortunate, makes ends meet in corrupt ways, but still is desperately trying to find happiness, even if its in a lonely drunken night of karaoke.
With respect to her and the other talent, this film lives on the shoulders of Geetanjali Thapa. Riz is excellent. She has a quiet calm about her, only lost when she's locked herself in a phone booth or a bathroom. Often times characters like this have some kind of decorated-but-secret military background a la Man From Nowhere, Man on Fire. While not as 'special forces', Riz's past is enough to shake the wannabe's around her. She is a dose of reality to her peers who think they are hard, but only truly learn to be after shared experiences with her. Thapa can miss her family on the phone, kill, share tender moments, and be outright vulnerable without 'switching' character. She is consistently believable throughout the story. She keeps our focus.
Elegantly is how this film plays. It isn't in a rush. People won't like this, but I do. But it captivates, is never jarring, feels elegantly tied together, and is buoyed by a haunting minimalist score. It's also about people we pretend not to see living lives that we don't want to know about because we want to feel happy. People won't like this either. I found it very strong. If you are into, say, Nadine Labaki's Capernaum, or the Safdie Brother's films, you're in good company here. Truth be told, as a debut feature, I found it far more impactful than Heaven Knows What. A big fan of the Safdie Brother's films, but Sinha has a soulfulness to her work that they aren't really doing. Her voice is distinct and I look forward to it getting bigger.