The Northman (Robert Eggers, 2022): 3/5

Striking tableau and a fun mixture of fantasy and myth (as with his other two films) but (as with his other two films), what is he telling us? Not much! Ultimately too pictorial, too self-impressed and unsatisfying psychologically. 

 

Apollo 10 ½: A Space Age Childhood (Richard Linklater, 2022): 2.5/5

Another movie (after Licorice Pizza) that would seem to be a perfect nostalgia machine for me but really wasn’t. Instead, I watched a lot of Licorice Pizza saying “actually that’s not really exactly the part of the Valley that I was from,” and in fact we’re talking a maybe 6-mile difference. Again in this flick, although I also fondly remember so much of all the interests and obsessions of the time he talks about (playground games, board games, breakfast cereal, tv shows, arcane societal norms, and of course the moonwalk) I remained defiantly on the outside: “Dark Shadows: did not watch.” Do I really require my nostalgia needs be met even more exactly than this?? In the end, too much here is Belfast-level “…and then one day The Monkees were on the Johnny Cash show” non-events. 

 

Brighton Rock (John Boulting, 1948): 3.5/5

Major source of Coen pilferage, including balmy camera placement and exaggerated gangster cockney slang. Watched with the subtitles on to clock some great turns of phrase. Seeing Richard Attenborough as a killer in 10 Rillington Place and this movie makes me realize he is/was one of the all-time great film creeps, and good for him. From a novel by Graham Greene, it’s cold and dead-eyed, with a slimy parody of a romance. 

 

Fires were Started (Humphrey Jennings, 1943): 2.5/5

More mid-war, stiff upper lip hagiography from Jennings. Recreating events and using the actual firefighters in the roles, this one at least brings some formal interest to the documentary/fiction, recalling Kiarostami’s Close Up as well as Flaherty.

  

Ms .45 (Abel Ferrara, 1981): 3.5/5

Femme Death Wish is sexy, cockeyed and psychotic Female Empowerment.

 

Boiling Point (Philip Barantini, 2021): 3.5/5

The whole thing appears to be (and supposedly actually was) one unbroken shot, inside a restaurant on a crucial day. All sorts of surface-level drama ensues, and the one-take ratchets up the tension. I watched this in the middle of my Clarie Denis Film Fest (see below) and perhaps that’s why I was longing for a moment or two where a character just sits there In his or her environment and does not do much of anything.

 

Les Vampires, 412 min (Louis Feuillade, 1915-16): 3.5/5

Secret passages behind paintings, a head in a box, a thrilling on-stage bat dance, a pen full of poison ink, entering a house through the chimney and a secret lair through a well, a cryptogram in a little red notebook, death by hatpin, a corpse being thrown from a moving train, multiple dead people waking up … and of course that great creeping around on the roofs of Paris in a cat suit. 

 

The Death of Mr. Lazarescu (Cristi Puiu, 2005): 4/5

I was expecting this sick character to be surrounded by indifference and neglect, symbolizing a bureaucratic and depressed former Soviet country. But that’s not the case. Neighbors, ambulance drivers, doctors and nurses seem to give him the care he needs, more or less (while also dealing with their own stuff). Their first instinct is always to not want to get involved, but soon they are pulled into doing what they can for him. I think this mirrors my own reaction. At first I felt disgusted and bored by this smelly alcoholic, but over time, I actually started caring about the old guy. The last 30 minutes examine the moral algebra of end-of-life treatment, by no means a Romanian issue. In the end, the title itself thrums out the movie’s pitilessness. 

 

The Grandmother, 34 min (David Lynch, 1970): 4/5

Expanding on many of Kenneth Anger’s tricks (especially those in Rabbit’s Moon) plus animation, this story excavates childhood trauma through fixation, exaggeration and immersion as well as sublimation and avoidance though dream and fantasy. 

 

Atlanta, Season 3 (Donald Glover, et al., 2022): 4/5

Excitingly unpredictable, casually surreal and odd, but always worth engaging with. Episode 4 (which can easily be enjoyed as a stand-alone experience) was especially relevant and brillinat, but the whole thing seems very much of its time (in a way that Winning Time can never be.)

 

Euphoria, Season 2 (Sam Levinson, 2022): 4/5

Seems genuinely new, like someone (Levinson) doing whatever it pops into his mind to do. Improvisational and not dramatically predetermined, but with lots of dong. As with first season (and, say, 1930s gangster movies), a very late turn towards punishment, justice and redemption confirms its “acceptability.” 

 

Winning Time, Season 1 (Max Borenstein, Jim Hecht, 2022): 3.5/5

It’s eager to please, and it did. Most of the characters just have one character trait that gets hammered on over and over. Still, that’s TV innit? John C. Riley achieves Gene Hackman-level greatness as Buss.  

 

Paul Newman Playing Legends of the West in the Mid-70s Film Fest

Big mistake watching these back-to-back. Even a couple of weeks out, I can’t remember which scenes were in which movie.

 

The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean (John Huston, 1972): 3.5/5

A surprisingly entertaining shaggy dog tale, sentimental and ironic, episodic with a lot of humor, some of which works. Uneasy sexual politics but not too bad. Newman, romantic and drunken, transcends the law and rules more or less righteously. Live bears (being bathed by Newman in a creek) and albino Stacy Keach (six months after Fat City) must be seen to be believed. It has a very modern wobble that leads me to believe that Newman and Huston are not only drunk but also stoned. Screenplay by Milius. 

 

Buffalo Bill and the Indians, or Sitting Bull’s History Lesson (Robert Altman, 1976): 3/5

“Nostalgia ain’t what it used to be.” William Cody is truly bummed that he must be “Buffalo Bill” to everyone forever, although he also continues to guard the legend with some reverence. He’s haunted by his own inauthenticity, but perhaps not enough. “You want everything to stay the same? Well, that’s going backwards.” 

Andrea Arnold Film Fest

A quick reminder that I also really liked American Honey and Wuthering Heights.

 

Wasp, 26 min (Andrea Arnold, 2003): 3.5/5

Shakey-cam, Dardenne-esque over the shoulder of a single mother with no money and four kids who just wants to have a date night with her old flame, emotions flowing every which way. Anticipates much of Sean Baker’s oeuvre. 

Dog, 11 min (Andrea Arnold, 2001): 3/5

Arnold’s loose, poetic and romantic (if brutal) kitchen sink feel is on full display here. 

Milk, 10 min (Andrea Arnold, 1998): 4/5

Amazingly accomplished short, full of event, emotion, moral complexity and good performances. Comparable to Mike Leigh. 

 

Red Road (Andrea Arnold, 2006): 3/5

Some good passages, full of relaxed spontaneity. But Arnold is saddled with a script that demands too much emotional business, none of which feels very real. Especially disastrous are the techno-thriller trappings of the first half hour. Really, really good sex scene at 1h20m.

Fish Tank (Andrea Arnold, 2009): 4/5

Full of elemental drama and unacceptable behavior. Cow and this movie share an interest in what it sounds and feels like to hear someone (someone/ something/ one’s self) breathe, and all the intimacy that implies. 

Cow (Andrea Arnold, 2021): 4.5/5

Simple and profound—just a life from beginning to end. And not at all punishing or didactic, since the farm where we hang out seems like a relatively nice one. Reminds us of how much of our own lives are prescribed and controlled according to corporate forces beyond our knowledge and ken, so we of course develop, gambol, stare blinkeredly at the stars, have sex, give birth, give milk until we can’t walk any more, then boom. Just one in a pattern of millions. (I ask myself, however, to what extent Arnold directed this. Cows live to be 15-20 years old and Fish Tank (certainly her blank check moment) was 13 years ago. Still, whomever, good job)

   

 

Claire Denis Film Fest

Last year, I wrote, “I like the way Bergman’s films tend to eschew long, atmospheric passages showing the environment and someone looking into space and perhaps thinking something. Instead, his movies charge right into the personalities of his characters and the conflicts that must be addressed. Oppositions and grudges are articulated and confronted, without delay, which is thrilling.” Well, this is precisely the opposite strategy from Denis’. Her characters just sit there stewing in their own horny and lonely juices, like fish motionless at the bottom of their dirtying tanks. Her settings, scenarios and mood are strong; plot and progression are not an interest. Half-event piles upon half-event, providing a cloud of “being” without drama or particular meaning. When the being is this specific, sometimes that’s enough.

 

I think that what these characters are missing (not by accident) is belief. They don’t believe in the drama they are in the middle of, and so they lack the necessary determination to move to the next plot point. What’s more, very few of her characters seem to give much of a shit for themselves or any other people, not really. 

 

Chocolat (Claire Denis, 1988): 3.5/5

An 8-year-old, living in Camaroon with her mother and father. A half hour in, the father leaves on a trip, and there’s a hyena in the area making weird sounds. For protection the mother invites the thrillingly handsome Isaach De Bankolé into her bedroom and hands him a rifle—and I’m thinking, “It’s all over, bruv.” But it’s not that kind of movie. Or maybe it’s enough that I thought that, and the feeling just hangs there, unresolved, over the rest of the film. Denis dotes much attention on the green and yellow expanses of the landscape, and for good reason.

Nenette and Boni (Claire Denis, 1996): 3/5

An intimate but abstract and impressionistic portrait of a brother (18) and younger sister (pregnant) in Marseille. That’s pretty much it. A wisp of a movie, brooding and resentful. 

 

White Material (Claire Denis, 2009): 3.5/5

A very contemporary film, thematically. Finally we have a (white) character who wants something, but it’s for things to stay the way they are, desperately and in deep denial, even as everyone else is in revolution. Denis returns to Africa, but this time she emphasizes the red of the soil instead of the greens and yellow of the vegetation. Thematic! Huppert is amazing as usual.

 

Bastards (Claire Denis, 2013): 2.5/5

The tone and milieu is that of a thriller, including guns, suicide, pornography, infidelity. But that’s just setting. None of the characters know what they want or what to do about it. Icky and sordid without any of a thriller’s propulsion and catharsis.

Let the Sunshine In (Claire Denis, 2017): 2.5/5

Curiously traditional, even rom-commy (at times) framing, script and tone. Does she use Etta James’ “At Last” unironically to express a sudden feeling of love? Yes. Yes, she does. A story of a female artist of a certain age looking for love, one would suspect this is Denis’ most personal script, yet I understand it’s from a novel. Small thing, but the English title bums me out. The original is Un beau soliel intérieur, meaning “The beautiful sun within.” The English version is actually the opposite image and meaning. 

  

 

Ruben Östlund Film Fest

Östlund’s films largely dispense with narrative (which would require the downtime of psychological investigation and dramatic set-ups)—and instead hop from one test for the characters to the next. I think his genius is that he champions not the (usual) crazy and self-rejecting outsider (other than in his first, nascent film) but those who are trying to hang in there with all the dumb requirements of society, with all the consequent negotiations, compromises and humiliating misjudgments. 

 

The Guitar Mongoloid (Ruben Östlund, 2004): 3/5

His first feature. Fixed-camera one-shots of irritating, pathetic, pointless and otherwise normal (if discomforting) behavior. The surveillance-camera video quality and plan fixe makes everything real and inevitable. References are Korine, Haneke, Andersson, Larry David. 

 

Involuntary (Ruben Östlund, 2008): 4/5

Five scenarios depict various characters facing a moral dilemma and deciding to put themselves out there, for once, and draw a line of personal responsibility. It doesn’t go well. Examines the requirement that people in a community conform to the beliefs of the community, even/especially if they are (patently) untrue—as well as the social value of cowardice. Östlund on this movie: “I started to get interested in … when social pressure is really doing the decision of why you do as you do. The extreme fear of losing face.” This is completely the stuff that I think about when I consider whether we, as individuals, have free will (and decide no). The Solomon Asch Conformity Experiment: copy and paste this into Google, and enjoy. 

 

Play (Ruben Östlund, 2011): 3.5/5

All the people in Involuntary are basically trying to do their own version of doing the right thing. But here we have the same straightjacket of custom and politeness of (white) society, but here the rule-keeping is disrupted and exploited by the (Black, immigrant) kids who are excluded from it. Haneke, especially Code Unknown, is a massive influence.

Force Majeure (Ruben Östlund, 2014): 3.5/5

A horror movie poking at our fear of being exposed to ourselves as the selfish assholes we are. This was the first of the Östlund’s work that I saw, and I found it pretty hard to watch and judge-y. But after watching more, I realize that the film isn’t just about this weak man (or even men in general). Serious question: If you have seen it, can you tell me whether the wife saves them in the end or did she just panic needlessly? I think it matters. 

The Square (Ruben Östlund, 2017): 4/5

Full of half-funny, provocative scenes and event, and a real moral investigation of what we do when someone asks for help (ie, more harm than good). Especially savages intellectuals and artists, who demonstrate themselves to be powerless, fearful and self-justifying.