Stars: Moreno de Bartoli, Miki Manojlovic, Mirjana Karanovic, Mira Furlan
Director: Emir Kusturica
Oscar History: 1 nomination (Best Foreign Language Film-Yugoslavia)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 2/5 stars
I decided to clear out the Netflix discs I had in the house, and Netflix decided to ship me When Father Was Away on Business. I think the reasoning here was that I wanted to see it after the recent death of Mira Furlan, who died in January. Furlan was the first major cast member from the television series Lost to pass away (unless I'm missing someone, correct me in the comments), and played the character of Danielle Rousseau for six seasons of the show. If you know me at all (or have just visited this blog for the very first time), you know that I love the television series Lost more than pretty much anything, and as a result I wanted to honor her in some way, but alas in the pandemic my good intentions in January got deterred, so I wasn't able to relate this back to Furlan. Better-late-than-never, though, and so today we're going talk about When Father Was Away on Business, which was Furlan's big break in Yugoslavian cinema, and won both the Palme d'Or at Cannes & was nominated for the Best Foreign Language film category at the Academy Awards.
(Spoilers Ahead) The movie takes place in the early 1950's, right after World War II, in Yugoslavia. We hear the story largely from the point-of-view of a young boy named Malik (de Bartoli), whose father Mesa (Manojlovac) is having an affair with a young air-pilot, Ankica (Furlan). When Ankica accidentally makes a comment about her lover's politics, Mesa is sent to a work camp, aided by his brother-in-law who quickly shacks up with Ankica. The film continues showing what his wife Sena (Karanovic) goes through as she raises two boys alone, and then in a work camp with her philandering husband. The movie ends on a strange note, with Mesa finally free, and in some ways enacting revenge on his brother-in-law (recently diagnosed with diabetes, his drinking habits sure to doom him if his political misalliances don't), but not on Ankica, with whom he has an angry sexual congress with, which Malik sees, thus breaking the illusion of his father's "business trips."
The movie itself is a bit dry, and not particularly interesting in retrospect. It's always hard to gage exactly how progressive a film is under a less democratic regime, which is what was happening in 1985 in Yugoslavia (I am not an expert on the country's politics). After the death of Marshal Tito in 1980, the country entered into something of an authoritarian council, though it was trying to in some capacities to dismiss communism in favor of a more capitalistic approach (which had middling success, at least in the 1980's). Either way, the film is not shy about criticizing the arbitrary nature of Tito's government & the way that it used scare tactics to stifle political discourse, though it does it in a funny way (think some of Milos Forman's films in Czechoslavakia in the 1960's). Unfortunately, the comedy doesn't save the film, and the rest is a bit plodding, and way too long.
As for Furlan, she's given a nothing part. Her character attempts suicide haphazardly near the end of the movie, with limited success (her doing so essentially just accidentally flushes the toilet...it's a weird scene). The movie doesn't really know what to do with her, which is a pity as Furlan would grow into a fine actress. Her work on Lost is some of my favorite side character work in the series, making a guest spot so memorable that fans would clamor for her & her mystery for years, eventually getting a backstory & even a final season reappearance. Though I didn't love her in the film that made her known to cinephiles, her work on Lost will forever be in my heart.
Stars: Homayoun Ershadi, Abdolrahman Bagheri, Afshin Khorshid Bakhtiari, Safar Ali Moradi, Mir Hossein Noori
Director: Abbas Kiarostami
Oscar History: No nominations, but it won the Palme d'Or
Snap Judgment Ranking: 2/5 stars
Today we take a look at one of the mid-90's Palme d'Or winners, and one from one of the more-celebrated directors of our time (at least if you ask your local cinephile rather than your local Oscar voter). Abbas Kiarostami has made breathtaking movies (I love Certified Copy), but his movies come with their own detractors. We'll get into this below, but Taste of Cherry, which is considered by many to be a landmark of minimalist movies, came armed with a lot of detractors, and was one of the more critically-mixed Palme winners of the decade (it actually shared the title with The Eel, which I've never seen and will surely be part of a future Palme week on the blog). I found this strange having seen Certified Copy, a movie brimming with complicated ideas, but one that I think few people would consider dull, and so I went into Taste of Cherry with a high level of intrigue. Let's find out where I land...
(Spoilers Ahead) The movie is, as I mentioned above, quite minimalist. It essentially is the story of Mr. Badii (Ershadi), a middle-aged man who is driving through Tehran looking for a man to do a specific job for him. As he starts picking up different men, all in desperate need of the high amount of money he's promised to pay them, he confesses that he is going to kill himself, and he needs someone to bury him after he dies. Continually the men who go in his car, from a young soldier to a theology student to a taxidermist try to talk him out of it, first by refusing to help and then with the taxidermist, telling him a long story about the taste of mulberries (I'm guessing the translation here is why the film is titled Taste of Cherry rather than Taste of Mulberry, but I could be wrong) eventually bringing him back from trying to kill himself many years ago. The film ends with the taxidermist promising to kill Mr. Badii, but only if Mr. Badii is dead in the grave he's dug for himself, and the film ends with Mr. Badii lying (still alive) in the gravestone as a thunderstorm begins.
Well, that's not exactly where it ends. My read on the initial ending was that Mr. Badii had listened to the taxidermist's story, and whatever had driven him to suicide was gone now, and so the taxidermist (someone who seemed to genuinely care about him) will find this man alive in the morning (you could also take the con here & assume he's taken his sleeping pills and has finally found the peace he's spent the movie looking for-it's a very open ending). But the ending of the film is weirdly a long dark screen followed by a shot of Kiarostami filming the final scene, implying a strange break with the fourth wall of the movie.
The first ending is relatively conventional, but it works; having the main character who has spent the whole film trying to end his life have a question of whether he still has something to live for is a good ending-it works. But the breaking of the fourth wall, for me, takes me out of the film entirely, and makes me wonder what the point was. I didn't want to make sure I misread this sequence, so I read some theories on this before I wrote this review, and I don't buy it; the comments about a movie being a mini-death are provocative, but I feel like he put a giant asterisk on everything we've seen before us with this random "twist," and I left not sold. I didn't entirely buy some of the issues that Roger Ebert (the most famous film critic in the world when this film came out, and its most vocal detractor) had with the film-I didn't so much find it boring as meandering, though I agree with Ebert's comments that the film would have been deepened had we learned something more about Mr. Badii and why he's trying to kill himself (and I also agree with Ebert that there is a clear queer element to this movie in the way that Mr. Badii picks up these men, seemingly implying something sexual in the delivery of his pickup). But the ending kind of ruined what was otherwise a contemplative film that I enjoyed, but didn't love. As a result, I'm going with 2/5 stars not because there wasn't potential, but because I can't shake an ending I felt jolted most of the rest of the movie.
Film: Scarecrow (1973) Stars: Gene Hackman, Al Pacino, Eileen Brennan, Ann Wedgeworth, Richard Lynch Director: Jerry Schatzberg Oscar History: No nominations, but it did win the Palme d'Or Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 stars
We're taking a mild detour in our conversation about the films of 1973 today. This film is, indeed, from 1973, but it is not Oscar-nominated. I keep a list of every Oscar-nominated film that I've never seen, but also on the list is every Palme d'Or winner I've never seen, and I didn't fact check, so we'll have this as one of our five 1973 movies this week (the last one, I promise, will close with an Oscar nominee). It's a good question as to why this wasn't nominated, though. At the time, Al Pacino & Gene Hackman were major stars, and had certainly gotten Oscar's blessing. Two years prior Hackman had won Best Actor for The French Connection and the year before this came out Pacino had gotten his first citation for The Godfather (which he had to have at least been close to winning for). What was it about Scarecrow that kept Oscar at bay, but made Cannes give it the top prize? Let's find out.
(Spoilers Ahead) The film is about two drifters: Max (Hackman), a hot-tempered felon who is just out of prison, and Lion (Pacino), an immature guy (but in an endearing way) who seems to view the world with a weird sense of innocence and hope. The two set off on an adventure to Philadelphia, where Max has socked away enough money that they can start a carwash together, but in the process they meet multiple women including a girl Max woos at a bar (Brennan) and then another who seems like she might be a more permanent love interest named Frenchy (Wedgeworth). Max gets into a fight with Frenchy's ex-boyfriend at a bar, which lands them in a prison farm for a month, and on that prison farm Lion, abandoned by Max who blamed him for the arrest, is sexually assaulted by a man who claimed he was trying to be his friend. Afterwards, Lion is angry and no longer sees the world as a place of hope, and their roles are reversed, with Max now trying to keep Lion happy. This ends badly-Lion ends up having a breakdown and is institutionalized, with Max, now seeing him as his one true friend, vowing to get him out one day and paying for him to get better.
The film is grim, as you can tell, and was not a hit at the time, which likely made it harder for Oscar to bless (Pacino's other movie that year, Serpico, was a huge hit and much friendlier with AMPAS). It's also a bit dated, to be honest. The film runs rampant with homophobia, with Richard Lynch's Riley the only outwardly "queer" character in the film (though there's an element to Max & Lion's friendship that could be read for some Celluloid Closet code), and of course he's the film's rapist. Additionally, the only thing the female characters are expected to provide is cleavage, and it does have that aura of a Seventies film that the only important things that happen are to people who are miserable.
But this isn't a bad film by any stretch, and the leads are great. Hackman is probably a bit better, getting the simpler role but making it sing. There's something weird about seeing the more collected Hackman playing the hothead and Pacino getting the sweet novice (a few years later, these roles surely would've been reversed), but it works for Hackman, whose Max has a sense of entitlement and anger at the world that informs his worldview, but feels well-earned. Pacino is good, though not quite as good as he'd be consistently at the time-it's hard to grade an Al Pacino performance that's solid but not groundbreaking when you know that there's roles like Michael Corleone and Sonny Wortzik just sitting around within a year or two ready for the taking. But this is definitely a film that I get why it was both critically-lauded and commercially-unsuccessful...even if I'm kind of in the middle on both.
Film: L'Enfant (2005) Stars: Jeremie Renier, Deborah Francois Director: Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne Oscar History: No nominations, but it did win the Palme d'Or Snap Judgment Ranking: 4/5 stars
We're going to finish our trio of Palme d'Or winners I recently caught with L'Enfant, a French film from the Dardenne Brothers in 2005. The Dardenne Brothers, for those who don't know, are basically the crown princes of Cannes. It seems every single time they so much as think about making a movie they win a prize at the festival, and they have won the Palme twice, the second of which was L'Enfant (first was Rosetta, which I haven't seen, but don't you worry-we'll get there eventually). I have not seen a lot of their movies (this is only my second of their movies) despite their high pedigree, and so I went into this genuinely curious as to what would unfold. Their movies are, based on reputation, quite sad and almost always contain unusual plot twists, sometimes to the chagrin of the protagonist. This is certainly true of L'Enfant, a hard-hitting look at a couple living below the poverty line in Belgium.
(Spoilers Ahead) The film is centered around Bruno (Renier) and Sonia (Francois) a young couple barely into adulthood who have recently had a baby named Jimmy. Sonia is enamored with the young child, but Bruno seems largely indifferent, viewing it as little more than another amusement for his days where he peddles items on the street and alternates between living with Sonia in a homeless shelter or in a makeshift tent by the river. Bruno ends up, about halfway through the movie, selling Jimmy to an illegal adoption agency, breaking apart Sonia's trust in him, and causing her to collapse & go to the hospital. Bruno desperately spends most of the rest of the film trying to get Jimmy back (but for a larger cost, one he cannot afford), and regaining Sonia's trust (which he doesn't-even after he goes to jail she still cannot entirely forgive him, even if she mourns the loss of their relationship).
The movie is bleak-there are no reprieves, no proper moments that would feel like you were going to get even a sucker's hope. Bruno is instantly supposed to be the bad guy, and while you are meant in the last thirty minutes to understand that he might have changed...it's still not enough for me. There's trying desperately to make your life work, and then there's selling your girlfriend's baby without even asking her beforehand, and when she gets mad, simply stating "we can make another one." Bruno's problem in the film, and it's subtle as it comes forward, isn't that he's poor (that might be the catalyst though) but that he's impossibly immature. You see that in the way that he relates more to young teenagers with whom he executes crimes, rather than other adults, including (increasingly) Sonia, who has gained a sense of responsibility through her pregnancy that Bruno has failed to capture.
The movie is very well-acted, and its story is wrenching but real. I didn't love it, which is weird because I generally like "cold" cinema (one of my favorite genres is film noir for a reason), but like Two Days, One Night, once I learned the story beats it was easy to see where this was headed, and for a film that relies heavily on one big twist, it doesn't always know how to sustain that. This is a really well put together movie, but it's not one that I feel in the way I normally feel for a movie I hand out "five stars" to (which I try to do only rarely). So it'll get four, but I understand why this was so compelling to critics & audiences, and I will continue to invest myself in the Dardennes filmography.
Stars: Malcolm McDowell, Richard Warwick, Christine Noonan, David Wood, Robert Swann, Peter Jeffrey
Director: Lindsay Anderson
Oscar History: No nominations, but it did win the Palme d'Or
Snap Judgment Ranking: 5/5 stars
Sometimes Palme d'Or winners take on their own life, becoming instant classics that are talked about in gushing circles for decades to come. Other times, they feel inconsequential, largely forgotten or the sort of movie when you're listing the winners that not only have you not seen, you've also not heard of it. if... our movie review for today, is somewhere in-between. This is not MASH or Pulp Fiction, an English-language movie that changed the cultural landscape to the point we still discuss it, but it was a hugely influential picture, one of the major films of the 1960's counterculture, in many ways as important at the time as landmark films like Blowup. The film put Malcolm McDowell on the map, and indeed got him the role of Alex DeLarge in A Clockwork Orange that would make him a legend. But what is if..., a movie that I had seen on lists but had no clue what it was actually about until I recently scurried to watch it before it disappeared off of the Criterion Channel? Let's find out.
(Spoilers Ahead) The movie takes place at a school in the 1960's, one where the students live at the school rather than return home at the end of the day (I believe in Britain this is referred to as a "public school," which has a completely different meaning in the United States, hence why I'm providing a definition). Mick (McDowell), Wallace (Warwick), and Johnny (Wood) are three men who are in their penultimate year at the school, and are thus one rung below the authority prefects, headed by Rowntree (Swann), who has an obsession with his role in authority, and is indeed given an enormous amount of leeway from the staff, who appear powerless compared to the prefects. After Rowntree decides to teach the three younger students a lesson, they rebel against him at the Founders' Day celebration, and Mick, Wallace, Johnny, and Mick's girlfriend (simply known in the film as "The Girl," played by Noonan) begin to shoot people fleeing the celebration after they set off a smoke bomb in the school hall.
The film is shocking, as are frequently a lot of the best-made counterculture films. The sex and violence, completely unthinkable just a few years prior to if... being released, is groundbreaking and bold. This film, considering its ending, certainly could not be made or shown widely today, particularly considering the epidemic of gun violence in the United States. The film's sexual politics are also ones we wouldn't see today. There's a scene where Mick kisses "the Girl" without her permission, and then in a fantasy sequence they wrestle, and the prefects force the junior students to essentially be their slaves, and frequently make sexual innuendos about them. Combined with a general sense of rebellion against authority, if... is a movie that intends to announce itself, and it's not hard to see why Cannes took notice.
That's because if... is a masterpiece. If you can move past some of the realism, particularly in regard to gun violence, what's here is a fresh film and one that clearly influenced a number of filmmaker's in the years that followed (particularly Stanley Kubrick). It's anchored by a wonderful star turn from McDowell, menacing and involved with this character in a way that few other actors would be able to be, but truly it's Anderson in the director's chair who takes this film to another level. The sporadic use of black-and-white, the great use of close, medium, and long shots, the way that it puts social commentary squarely in its center but also can feel universally about the rebellion of youth some fifty years after the fact...that's difficult to achieve in a movie. if... isn't well-remembered today, but it should be-this is innovative, provocative cinema.
Film: Fahrenheit 9/11 (2004) Stars: Michael Moore Director: Michael Moore Oscar History: The film wasn't submitted for the Best Documentary Feature (considering its box office, it almost certainly would've won the category) as Moore wanted to compete for Best Picture, which he wasn't cited for (though one wonders in the expanded field if he might have made that happen). It did win the Palme d'Or though. Snap Judgment Ranking: 4/5 stars
I don't entirely know how it's possible I didn't watch Fahrenheit 9/11 in college. I definitely saw Bowling for Columbine during that time on DVD, and this was a movie that I would have discussed with peers at the time. It's probably because I was living at home when it came out during the summer, but it's weird that I didn't also catch this on DVD, as it certainly would have been a discussion point as I was an ardent volunteer for the Kerry campaign that fall. Whatever the reason, I finally caught this movie for the first time a few days ago, and it's jaw-dropping. I don't watch a lot of one-sided documentaries nor politically-focused ones, because they usually slant enough that they border on falsehood. Even if you know something not to be true, when you see someone say it amidst a bunch of other facts, it gets caught in your brain as "well, maybe I'm wrong and they're right." This is also why I never watch cable news opinion shows, even with people I agree with, because I want to keep my opinions grounded in fact. But I'm trying to see all of the Palme winners, and this one popped up in my Netflix queue, so I figured I'd give it a shot, and while Moore's occasional use of bias to make a point comes through still 16 years after the fact, it's the crystal ball he put up to America and the Republican Party that is truly shocking.
(There are no Spoiler Alerts in Real Life) The film focuses on the biggest headlines from the first term of George W. Bush's presidency. The big stories that Moore focuses on are the 2000 election, the 9/11 attacks, the Iraq War & the reasons for going into war, and the Bush family's connections to the Saudi Arabian royal family. The film's back-half continually hearkens back to Lila Lipscomb, its most emotionally-effective sequence. Lipscomb is a Michigan woman who spent most of her life being against pacifist protesters, thinking they were attacking her family (she had a long military family history), and then changes her opinion when her son dies in Iraq. We see her stand outside the White House, fighting with another woman who is accusing anti-war protesters of being staged and "not real." The film ends with Moore, sympathetic to the soldiers, pointing out that only one member of Congress has a child fighting (they never mention who it is, but for the curious it was then-Sen. Tim Johnson of South Dakota), and noting that wars are consistently fought by lower-income families who are not afforded the same financial opportunities afforded to those politicians who send them to war.
This film was made in the run-up to the 2004 election, so in many ways it was meant as a deterrent for Democrats to not take lightly a second term of Bush's presidency. This message was not, of course, realized. Despite Moore's film becoming the highest-grossing documentary of all-time, George W. Bush won that election, and it had dire consequences for liberals (Hurricane Katrina, the housing crisis, and the Supreme Court tenures of John Roberts & Samuel Alito happened during that time frame, for context). It's heartbreaking as a Democrat to watch Moore lay out the case for denying Bush a second term in such a cinematic way, and yet know that not only would he not be heard, but we'd elect a second Bush just sixteen years after the first in the form of Donald Trump. Indeed, the shots of incompetence, corruption, and moral bankruptcy displayed by some of the politicians in the film feels like it could be plucked from our current administration verbatim.
Moore's film isn't flawless, even if it's very easy to digest (even 16 years after the fact, when a number of the headliner names are distant memories). There are scenes that a serious journalist (one who came in with an open mind) certainly wouldn't have allowed. There appear to be half-truths during the sequence about the Saudi flights, allowing Osama bin Laden's relatives to leave the United States without being questioned (this is not correct-many of them were questioned before they left the United States), and Moore's confrontations with members of Congress were also edited. Putting aside that Johnson was the only member of the Senate who had a child serving in Iraq at the time (both Reps. Duncan Hunter & Joe Wilson had children fighting abroad), the confrontations were edited to make the members of Congress, particularly Mark Kennedy, look worse than they actually were (Kennedy is shown simply confused by Moore, but has stated later that he did chat with him for a while, and that his nephew served in Afghanistan).
This is because Michael Moore is not a journalist, he's a filmmaker, and filmmaker's have perspectives. It's hard for me to sort of intermingle my feelings about Moore's politics (which I tend to share) with his attitude toward journalism (which I do not share) and then to add in his filmmaking skills, which are at their best here. I'm giving this four stars because I think it's an important, well-made film, but one that relies too heavily on pushing a narrative when there is enough evidence there to let the narrative come together on its own.
Film: Parasite (2019) Stars: Song Kang-ho, Jang Hye-Jin, Choo Woo-Shik, Park So-dam, Lee Sun-kyun, Cho Yeo-Jeong Director: Bong Joon-ho Oscar History: 6 nominations/4 wins (Best Picture*, Director*, Film Editing, International Feature Film-South Korea*, Production Design, Original Screenplay*) Snap Judgment Ranking: 5/5 stars
One of the cooler but occasionally odd things about writing a blog about film is that, because I see so many movies, I sometimes forget whether I liked a film or not. When prepping to write this article, I went back and read some of the other things I'd written about Bong Joon-ho on this blog, and suddenly realized that Snowpiercer, a film in my head I'd only focused on the negative, was a movie I actually gave a positive review the first time I saw it. The indulgences of the film started to outweigh the compelling narrative and the strong supporting work of the cast. This lack of memory may have been partially why I was so shocked to adore Parasite, though I doubt even if I recalled my fondness for Snowpiercer that it would have put a damper on such a film. Parasite is a chilling, thoughtful, and fascinating picture, one that plays with our expectations and genuinely doesn't show where we're going until the final shot of the movie.
(Spoilers Ahead) The film revolves around the Kim family, the father Ki-taek (Song), his wife Park Chung-sook (Jang), his son Ki-woo (Choi), and daughter Ki-Jeong (Park). They live on the outskirts of society, frequently unemployed (at the beginning of the film they're hunting for free WiFi, and are trying to make money by folding boxes for a pizza delivery company together as a family unit), but have dreams for their future. One day Ki-woo's wealthy friend wants him to tutor a rich teenage girl whom he has designs on marrying eventually, assuming that Ki-woo won't try to become romantically involved with her (as you can guess, he does). But this potential blossoming romance isn't the catalyst for the film-it's the opportunity Ki-woo sees in the gullible wealthy people who employ him, particularly Yeon-gyo (Cho), a silly woman who is easily manipulated by the Kim family into employing all of them, without realizing that they're all related. Soon they are living some facsimile version of the high life. They aren't as wealthy as the Park family who employs them, and occasionally have to endure some patronizing from their employers, but they are all employed, well-paid, and have access to a gorgeous mansion. Their lies come back to haunt them, though, when the housekeeper they got fired comes back, and reveals a horrifying secret-she's been keeping her husband in an underground bunker (that the Parks have no idea exists) in the house, as he's wanted by loan sharks and has literally been living there for four years, going mad.
This is a twist that could make-or-break a movie. Up until this point the film feels a bit like a caper film, a series of con artists giving their comeuppance to a group of spoiled but ultimately innocuous rich members of society. The movie turns on its head with it, and Bong frames this scene as if we're literally about to see a monster or a horrifying serial killer's chamber-I cannot stress how gripping & fantastic this sequence is. After this moment, the movie is a different tale, as we start to see the lengths that the Kim family will go to to ensure they get to stay on their slightly elevated plane, and we also see what they've done to this housekeeper by essentially getting her fired (she dies from an accidental head wound eventually). The final third of the film also reveals the cruelty of the Parks, with us realizing that Mr. Park views the Kim family as essentially vermin, something he can take pity on but doesn't really view as human beings like himself, and his wife while less vicious, also views them as less-than. In the last moments of the movie, we get Bong's penchant for violence in his pictures thrown at our screens, as a series of attacks from the housekeeper's husband (trying to kill the Kims, and succeeding in killing Ki-Jeong) occurs, and then Mr. Kim, in a blind rage when his employer largely dismisses the death of his daughter (not realizing she's his daughter) and sniffs with disgust at the housekeeper's husband in the same way he does at Mr. Kim, stabs him in a blind rage, seeing him for the heartless bigot that he is. In the end, Mr. Kim becomes the housekeeper's husband, retreating into the bunker to live the rest of his days, while his wife and son hope to someday buy the house to let him out.
The movie has a lot to say about money and social status, but let's start with it stylistically-it's a home run. While I liked Snowpiercer, I loved Parasite, with its perfectly constructed three-act story structure and the way that it telegraphs everything without you necessarily noticing the little hints that are about to come to this tale. The acting is uniformly good, with special credence to Cho's dismissed housewife and Choi's horny, still-not-entirely-aware-of-how-the-world-works son. And the set design is superb-watching the ways that we contrast the dingy but lived-in world of the Kims home with the opulence of the Park house (not to mention that bunker). If this was an American film, it'd be an easy nomination for Best Production Design at the Oscars.
But it's the conversation about wealth that is provocative and challenging in the movie. Bong doesn't provide easy answers here, but he does want to play with your expectations. We spend the first third of the film watching the Kims latch onto the Park family, trying to each get access to cash that could at the very least improve their situation somewhat. We don't feel bad for the Parks (they have plenty), but when the fired housekeeper comes in, we realize that they've essentially ruined her life to make theirs somewhat better (they had three jobs before they took hers, so it was more greed than necessity that caused them to take her position), but we also see a look at their future. Despite stable employment for years, she's literally bringing scraps back to her family in the basement, never really escaping her station even through hard work. Bong's conversation here is about the dream of living a better life, and the obstacles that you face to get there, particularly increasingly impossible ones when the system is stacked against you. The Park children have private tutors, unlimited privilege, and access to anything they want; even when the Kims gain a foothold, they are shown how little say they have in such a conversation, always getting pushed down. This never feels like a social issue film, in that this message is being delivered by impassioned speeches and self-revelations, but it's all there, neat-and-trim, an indictment of a caste system that claims upward mobility is possible...but takes no account for the many hindrances that are put in place to ensure you fail.
Film: I, Daniel Blake (2016) Stars: Dave Johns, Hayley Squires Director: Ken Loach Oscar History: No nominations, but it did pick up the Palme d'Or Snap Judgment Ranking: 2/5 stars
I will admit right now that Ken Loach is one of those "prestige" directors whom I don't really get. I have seen a few of his films, but never been taken with him in the way that you would expect from a cinephile, and it's occasionally hard to wrap my heard around him being one of only eight directors who have won the Palme twice. Let's just say he hardly joins his fellow title holders Michael Heneke or Francis Ford Coppola in my personal favorite filmmaker's list. But as I am putting a close on 2016 on this blog, and will be in June starting to tackle the year for the OVP, I wanted to also see the film that won the other major cinematic honor that year, and so I went venturing back into the world of Ken Loach.
(Spoilers Ahead) The movie starts with Daniel (Johns), a man nearing sixty who has recently suffered a heart attack. As a result, his doctor says that he is not fit to work, but an assessment to gain access to welfare (I'm American, and this is very much a film focused on UK social issues despite the US clearly having similar issues, so if I accidentally Americanize some of these terms I apologize) is denied saying that he is "fit to work," and so Daniel is stuck trying to pursue work but knowing he can't get work because it is deleterious to his health. He meets a young woman named Katie (Squires) who is struggling as well, having just moved out of a homeless shelter and is living in Newcastle because it's too expensive to live in London. The film follows the two as their situation worsens, with Daniel continually humiliated by a lack of understanding of technology & having to apply for jobs he knows he can't accept, while Katie eventually starts shoplifting and becomes a prostitute to be able to keep her home for her two children.
The movie's powerful and raw, and I get why this is a picture that was celebrated at Cannes. Considering the personal politics of some of that year's jury (Donald Sutherland, George Miller, Kirsten Dunst), it's hard not to see them recommending the film as much for its social issues message as they did for its content. The film is a telling indictment of the UK welfare system, blaming a lost generation of working poor on government bureaucracy and out-of-touch politicians. It's hard to look at Daniel's struggles and not want to do something about it, and this is not exclusively a British problem-it's also an issue that the United States struggles from, where we make it nearly impossible for the benefits we provide for people that are struggling to actually get to those people, therefore saying we're helping when practically-speaking we aren't. It's a worthy goal, and on that lens I'm glad I, Daniel Blake received such attention (it was even called out on the floor of Parliament by Jeremy Corbyn against the Conservative government).
But the actual film itself isn't particularly good. The acting is fine, but the problem with social issue pictures is that they are so heavily reliant on expository dialogue and underlining the political points that the film is attempting to make that it usually feels more like a lecture than a natural film. The movie so heavily wants to chronicle the journeys of people like Katie and Daniel that it's hard not to wish that they'd just done that, making a documentary about real-life individuals rather than sticking to a relatively flimsy, predictable narrative. The movie itself screams important, but it's never particularly compelling or good and is so matter-of-fact that it's hard to mourn with the people on the screen; if anything, you're mourning because these people are placeholders for all-too-real individuals who suffer the problems of Daniel and Katie everyday.
Film: Shoplifters (2018) Stars: Lily Franky, Sakura Ando, Mayu Matsuoka, Kairi Jo, Miyu Sasaki, Kirin Kiki Director: Hirokazu Kore-eda Oscar History: 1 nomination (Best Foreign Language Film-Japan) Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 stars
One of the best parts about my annual winter break, where I check out from the world around me for a few days is that I see a lot of movies. Like, I've probably seen 10 movies in the past three days alone (I've lost count, but it's in that ballpark). The problem is that I run a blog where I'm supposed to be writing reviews of all of these movies, and whereas I started this vacation behind on that task, I appear destined to end it even further behind. So I'm goaling myself to get at least one new review of a 2018 movie, out every day until my annual Top 10 lists (the final weekend of January this time). We're going to start with a film that I've been aware of for months thanks to Cannes, but was still able to be surprised by some of the twists that lay in store throughout an oftentimes difficult-to-watch look at poverty in Tokyo.
(Spoilers Ahead) The film centers around a makeshift group of people who live in a small house in Tokyo. They consist of three adults, serving as types of parents: Lily's Shibata as "father," Ando's Nobuyo as "mother," and Kiki's Hatsue as "grandma," as well as three "children:" Aki (Matsuoka), Yuri (Sasaki), and Shota (Jo). Yuri is the most recent edition, a young girl that was taken by the family from an abusive home, essentially kidnapped but with the intent of making her life better. The family make by day-to-day through shoplifting and various grifts, as well as Nobuyo working a job as a washerwoman. As the film unfolds, we learn more and more about their living situation, but the writers try to underline that these are generally good people, taking advantage of a system that has almost completely abandoned them. Nobuyo, for example, is essentially blackmailed out of her job because she makes too high of wages, and because she's trying to protect Yuri from abuse.
As the film progresses, though, young Shota starts to feel a moral quandary regarding the shoplifting, particularly how he's making Yuri (who now goes by Lin because her disappearance has been reported on the news), learn the "family way" and start committing the crime. As he questions his existence a bit more, we start to see the darker side of the three adults in the film, with them more focused on material gains than we had initially thought, and less altruistically focused on the children whom they are supposed to be caring for. When Hatsue dies, and is buried in their yard, this is a turning point for Shota, and he gets caught shoplifting, breaking his leg in the process. Suddenly unmasked, the four remaining family members attempt to abandon Shota when the police catch them. And here is where all hell breaks loose, as there are a mountain of revelations that happen as a result of this arrest (I wasn't kidding about that spoiler alert).
Whether or not you like Shoplifters will depend on two things-what you think about the messaging of the first half of the film, a quiet, languid look at petty crime & abject poverty. Here, I wasn't a fan as I felt like there was nothing particularly new said here and the film felt messy in the way it didn't grow any of the characters all-that-much save Shota. In the second half, I understood why I didn't know more about these characters, which almost made up for the fact that the first half had felt so misleading. Nobuyo and Shibata we learn are much more than petty criminals; they essentially killed Nobuyo's first husband (they claim in self-defense, but this feels suspect considering how easily they lied the first half of the movie), and that Hatsue was essentially taking bribes from Aki's family to take care of her, rather than doing so in the goodness of her heart. We also learn that Shota was not so much a runaway as a truly kidnapped child. Unlike Yuri, we don't get the indication that he was abused so much as Shibata (whose real name is Shota, as he renamed the child after him), desperately wanted a son & Nobuyo couldn't give him one. As a result, we spend the last half hour of the movie focused on whether or not these are "good" people in a traditional sense, and we are left with the understanding that there may be no such thing.
The back half of the movie works mostly because it's so stunning, you leave thinking about how you truly make assumptions based on someone's station and class. We are taught in movies that the "poor" people in cinema are always good, but the film questions that by making Nobuyo & Shibata complicated creations. They are the type of people who would kidnap Yuri to keep her out of an abusive home (we see in the closing moments of the film that the abuse continues, with Yuri neglected in a way she hadn't been with her makeshift family), but we also understand that they're the types of people who would recklessly break the law to get what they want. Shota silently calling Shibata "dad" after refusing to the entire film at the end, after learning that Shibata had essentially deprived him of a loving family or a normal life felt cloying & like a giant misread to me, but there's definitely some strength in the twist, and particularly the work from Ando is well worth the ticket price for this movie.
Film: 4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days (2007) Stars: Anamaria Marinca, Laura Vasiliu, Vlad Ivanov, Alexandru Potocean Director: Cristian Mungiu Oscar History: No nominations, but the film did win the Palme d'Or Snap Judgment Ranking: 4/5 stars
Minimalism is arguably the sexiest thing in foreign or independent cinema right now, and with good reason. Frequently true art-house cinema will find a way to not only comment on the world around us, but also the world of cinema at large, and currently there could not be more of a push for "larger, bigger, tentpole, franchise"-the quest to create a cinematic experience similar to that enjoyed in front of your television or to create something that can be milked for toys, merchandise, and sequels (oh the sequels!). As a result, independent artists are trying to react to that by making quiet films, films that slice at a particular aspect of life but do so with small amounts of characters, perhaps even interactions in general, on the screen. 4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days does just that, telling the tale of just one day in the life of two women toward the end of the Communist era in Romania.
(Spoilers Ahead) The film succeeds not by being minimalistic, but by actually finding a way to get their stories across without having to indulge even a little bit in expository language or random twists-and-turns. Minimalism itself isn't an automatic indication that something is bad, just as blockbusters or larger-than-life stories aren't an indication of a lack of artistry. The film starts out laser-focused on Otilia (Marinca), and stays on her the entire journey save for one crucial scene, but as the film progresses we learn very little about her and instead we are treated to more of an introduction to her world, and what is shaping her every move. The film is not shy about showing the destruction brought to Romania by the Ceausescu regime, which at this point was about to collapse during the Romanian Revolution.
The central action of the film is on Otilia's friend Gabita (Vasiliu) who is roughly 4-5 months pregnant, but unmarried and trying desperately to secure an abortion for herself. The film shows Gabita as an unknowable, horrified creature, someone who is clearly in way over her head but is also used to the world stepping in and taking care of her. There is a scene about halfway through the film when, after both girls are raped by the man who is performing the abortion, Otilia actually shows her true hatred for Gabita, chastising her for constantly lying and realizing that Gabita either is very naive, very foolish, or very crafty, essentially pimping out her friend in order to pay for the operation. It's perhaps the only time we get a window into both girls at once. Otherwise we are treated to what is essentially an unspoken bond between the two women. It's implied, quite heavily, that Otilia has already done this before but it's never admitted, and it feels like she's about to claim such a thing with her boyfriend Adi, who is of a higher economic station than her and she is aware that his family is deeply prejudiced against her. The film ends with a large number of questions hanging around both girls-will they remain friends, will Otilia continue to date Adi, and where do they go with their lives from here, but weirdly for an independent film of this nature, the central question is quite simply answered: the girls get away with the illegal procedure, with Otilia throwing the fetus down a chute and then cleaning up the mess.
What stands out about this film, aside from just the approach of it to the subject, is the way that it feels wholly organic. The dialogue is rich but never feels like something out of a screenplay. The role of Gabita, in particular, had to be incredibly difficult to write because we never learn her motives. The closest we come is that she waits in the lobby while her friend has sex with the abortionist, and is relatively calm and composed the second that a man walks by and she wants a cigarette. The fact remains that the dialogue, especially for a character that feels very on-her-sleeve, is wonderfully selected to make sure that we learn as little about her as possible without it ever feeling like the director is hiding obvious clues to keep the story coming. This is true of almost every character save for Adi, who as a "higher-class" member of the society hasn't felt the pressure to be introverted and never show his cards. It's a wonderful meditation on gender and economic roles, and quite frankly feels like it could be made about pretty much any era. The fact that they do it with an issue as controversial as abortion and never once feel preachy, moralistic, or have a progressive speech about how this is "right" is all the more outstanding.
Those are my thoughts on this picture, one I've been meaning to see for years but never got around to for some reason. What about yours? Is anyone else a fan, or have some other pictures from recent Romanian cinema I should give a try? If so, share below in the comments!
Film: MASH (1970) Stars: Donald Sutherland, Elliott Gould, Tom Skerritt, Sally Kellerman, Robert Duvall, Roger Bowen Director: Robert Altman Oscar History: 5 nominations/1 win (Picture, Director, Supporting Actress-Sally Kellerman, Editing, Adapted Screenplay*) Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 stars
Seeing a classic for the first time is something that is a sight to behold, and quite frankly something I don't get to do very often anymore, particularly if I know in advance it's already a classic. Most of the classics I've actually had a chance to catch by now in my movie-watching. In fact, looking at the famed AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies list, I only have four movies left to see (all of which we'll have reviewed here before the year is up). So I went into MASH (or M*A*S*H, if you so choose) with a bit of nervous anticipation. Would I love it? Would my expectations be too high? Would it be one of those movies that I gush on and on about or would it be a film that I simply relegate to the "it was okay" pile of the cinematic conversation? Let's find out, shall we?
(Spoilers Ahead) The thing I think that first threw me about the film, after tangential relationships with the hit show starring Alan Alda (I've seen a couple of episodes, but not enough to know anything other than Hawkeye, Radar, and Hot Lips' character names), was that the film felt grimier than I was expecting. Perhaps forgetting that it was the 1970's and was filmed by Robert Altman, I was expecting something a bit glossier, a bit more in line with TV Land and not with an independent film channel. The film gains from this, though. Unlike other major war films of the era (The Deer Hunter, Apocalypse Now), we don't necessarily get a look at the realism of the war, but MASH is hardly supposed to be realistic-it's a farce of sorts, a comedy that isn't mocking previous films (like, say, Spy) but is simply going for straight laughs in its own Altman-esque world.
The film is by Altman and has to be called classic for at least a reason, so I am not going to sit here and tell you there aren't a few redeeming qualities to the movie. The Altman-flow of the script, with actors talking over each other and in different directions is always jarring at first, and blissful when you see it working so well (Nashville is forever my favorite example of this, but none of his films have that much trouble achieving it). The film is filled with characters, most of them memorable. If a film is going to have a long shelf-list of actors, it's nice to know that they managed to create interesting side avenues with people like Robert Duvall's Frank Burns having tons of depth and interesting nuance. The film rarely stops having a sterling script, even if some of the subplots border onto the offensive.
That's probably where my biggest issue with the movie lies. It's finely written and directed, this is true, but the movie itself celebrates the jackassery of Hawkeye (Sutherland) and Trapper John (Gould) a little too much for my liking, particularly at the expense of the main female character Margaret "Hot Lips" Houlihan (Kellerman). The film constantly wants to take Hot Lips down a peg for no real reason other than her gender, not only by giving her the nickname after a romantic dalliance with Duvall's Frank Burns is broadcast over the camp, but by consistently objectifying her, eventually watching her reduced to a faux shower stunt (where she is exposed naked for the entire camp to see) and to being a bouncy, idiotic cheerleader at a football game. Honestly, the performance isn't helped by Kellerman, who plays Hot Lips as shrill and both uptight and randomly horny without any explanation for either, but she didn't get much to go by. It's weird that this performance was cited for an Oscar nomination over anyone else in the film-perhaps it was the nudity (which was a pervy reason for the Academy, but not the first time they had done such a thing).
The sexism and the complete lack of empathy toward the main characters causes a disinterest as the film progresses, something that no amount of fine direction and writing is going to fix. You need to care about the main characters, and I found nothing to like or really even hate in the main protagonists, so in the end it becomes something like a series of stunts, and the gravity of Hawkeye leaving loses all of its meaning in the final scene.
So while I see why this is regarded as a good film, a classic is a big stretch. The film has aged miserably, and the writing/directing has been on display in far better pictures that Altman has made like Nashville and McCabe and Mrs. Miller. These were my thoughts at least-I suspect a number of you have seen this iconic movie-what were yours?
Yowza-that was a jam-packed week, wasn't it? My cable is out right now, so I'm wandering like a nomad around my house right now, cleaning without the gentle hum of my television to comfort me (I like the noise). First, though, we need to link it up for the weekend. Let's get started!
On Entertainment...
-Probably the celebrity-related article of the week that everyone seems to be discussing is the recent Forbes article (she's also on the cover) about Jessica Alba's $1 billion Honest Company, and the enormous success that it has received as Alba created a line of goods that are eco-friendly and chemical-free. As one of my coworkers pointed out, Alba is beautiful, award-nominated (Golden Globes, y'all!), and now insanely rich (Forbes estimated her net worth as $200 million), so it's hard not to be tapped by the green-eyed monster here. However, while I have never been a huge fan of Alba's as an actress, I have always really enjoyed her as a celebrity so I'm 100% okay with this. It's kind of fascinating as well how many female entertainers have transformed a relatively short career as an actress (Alba seems to rarely be in films or television lately) into a hugely successful career in business, as Alba is joined by the likes of Kathy Ireland (whom Forbes also profiled), Jaclyn Smith, and Jessica Simpson in this regard.
-I have to agree with Entertainment Weekly's Chris Lee, who discussed the recent controversy surrounding Emma Stone's casting as a biracial woman who is supposed to be both white and Asian. I won't be seeing this movie more out of the reviews being abysmal than principle (plus Cameron Crowe gets dangerously too close to Ron Howard for my taste), but honestly-who didn't see this coming? It's not like there aren't actresses that could take on the role (as Lee points out, Olivia Munn) or that anyone faults casting the Oscar-nominated Stone, but can we just have people play their own ethnicities? It always ends badly and quite insultingly when this doesn't happen, and in 2015 we should know better.
-I'm aware that this story is a few months old, so it doesn't really belong in the news of the week, but I'm putting this out there in the world in hopes that I can get a comment from someone with a quandary. I found out this past week that Louise Pentland (aka Sprinkle of Glitter) had separated from her husband in March. This makes me so sad cause I love Louise and her cheeky ways, but also I am curious-is there a solid YouTuber gossip or news site that I should be following but am not? This is the third such story that I've missed of this nature, and this isn't something that would have shown up in Louise's Twitter so I wouldn't have seen it there. If you know, please share in the comments and I would be most grateful!
-Nick Davis over at Nick's Flick Picks finished up his countdown of the 1995 Cannes Film Festival twenty years later as a retrospective. Nick is one of my favorite Twitterers and bloggers, so please check it out even if you don't know a thing about that slate of films, as he makes pretty much everything entertaining. On Politics...
Gov. Sam Brownback (R-KS)
-Kansas Republicans are looking at raising taxes, which is surely a sentence you don't see every day. The reason is that the Kansas Republicans have basically run the state into the ground, with massive tax cuts that did nothing to spur employment or spending (which is essentially the point of a tax cut from a pragmatic standpoint), and as a result they have a huge budget deficit that won't go away without cuts to popular spending programs, principally education. I feel for Kansas teachers and students, I really do, but it's hard to feel bad for a state who knew all of this a year ago and yet reelected the governor (San Brownback) who initiated these cuts. Blind partisan loyalty is always a bad thing, and if you have a governor who goes completely too far (I'd never elect Alan Grayson as governor, for example), you need to suck it up with the other guy for four years. They didn't, and now they either have to have a raise in taxes (which is the right decision) or more state spending cuts for education and aid for low-income families (which is the wrong decision).
-The Supreme Court made what may be the biggest eyebrow-raise of the week in terms of the "one person, one vote" theory in terms of how House seats are appropriated. Currently the House seats are given based on the census, not on how many eligible voters there are in a district, but this court case could change that. As the article I linked from 538 points out, this probably wouldn't do much in terms of the race for the White House, but it would dramatically help the Republicans in the House. It also makes little sense-the census makes more sense both because it is an actual representation of the populace (citizens should have representation in Congress, regardless of whether they're old enough to vote or not), and because you only appropriate House seats every ten years, which means that you're going to have a huge bottleneck of people that turn eighteen throughout that time in faster-growing districts, thus defeating the purpose of this exercise. However, between this, and cases on redistricting, Obamacare, gay marriage, and immigration, the next two cycles for the Supreme Court will be deeply political, particularly in terms of Democrats' viability in Congress and President Obama's agenda.
-Perhaps the biggest must-read article of the week was the Politico magazine article (I love them) regarding Mike Pence and the bizarre protests in his state regarding HIV in Scott County. Scott County, for those unfamiliar with the scandal is home to a huge HIV epidemic despite being a rural county that normally wouldn't see these sorts of statistics, an aberration that is a result of lower-income people abusing opiods and other intravenous drugs, resulting in shared needle usage. The governor has put in place a needle-exchange program for the county, but this was under enormous public pressure, with the number of HIV cases in the state resulting from drug use tripling in the past year alone. I truly don't get the politics of not doing something like this everywhere. Yes, of course we should try to stem the abuse of prescription and illegal drugs, but HIV and Hepatitis C are deadly diseases, and needle exchange programs work (look at New York, for example, as great proof of their success as syringe-related HIV has dropped dramatically in the state in the past two decades as a result of these programs). States like Indiana, Kentucky, Tennessee, and West Virginia have seen huge increases as a result of not championing these programs, and need to expand needle-exchange programs (which, it should be noted, were allowed under federal law until the Republicans reversed the program in 2011 after the Midterms). Shameless Self-Promotion of the Week...
-What most first dates feel like. YouTube Video of the Week...
-Chris Pratt has been everywhere promoting Jurassic World, and if you find him remotely sexy or funny, you will never want to stop watching the below clip:
Just One More...
-This week it was revealed the Saiga antelope, which are an endangered species housed primarily in Kazakhstan, have been dying off at an alarming rate. The reasoning is still up for debate, but it's incredibly concerning as over 120,000 (more than one-third of the species total population) have died, likely due to a bacteria that is impacting their already reduced immune systems (which most attribute to unseasonal rainfall as a result of global warming). Just another reason for climate change legislation...
Whew-I'm actually kind of on a tear this weekend, in terms of productivity after a week filled with some nice reflection, a lot of projects getting kicked off the ground, and most importantly, progress (isn't that just a wonderful word when you can use it in a sentence and not precede it with the words "we need to make"?). As a result, we're getting this post out nice and early this Saturday morning. Here's a roundup of what you may or may not have read about on the internet this week and what my thoughts are on it:
On Entertainment...
-Jennifer Lawrence is proving that she's not going to just brush aside the Sony leaks, reportedly nabbing $20 million to star in the upcoming Sci-Fi space film Passengers, more than double what her costar Chris Pratt will be making. This came in response to the fact that she made less money on American Hustle than her costar Jeremy Renner, who is hardly what'd you'd consider a movie star in her caliber. I'm liking this trend, and though some may quibble about millionaires fighting over who gets the biggest mansion, it draws an illustrative, real-world point about how women in the real world are still making less than men. The same thing happened with Charlize Theron recently and Lily Tomlin/Jane Fonda called out their show's producers for giving their supporting male costars the same paychecks as the titular leads.
-I mean, we have to weigh in on Harry Shearer leaving The Simpsonsand what that might mean for one of television's most venerable series. Initially I was on Shearer's side out of principle-he's a wonderfully-talented performer who has been with the show for decades, providing life to everyone from Mr. Burns to Ned Flanders to Principal Skinner. But after reading about the deal and what producers Al Jean and James L. Brooks are offering, Shearer is either being ridiculous or disingenuous. $14 million for two years is an astronomical amount of money for an actor that isn't even appearing onscreen, and while initially Shearer was complaining that he wouldn't be able to work on other projects, that doesn't seem to be the case and it appears that he can actually quite literally phone-in his performance three hours a week every week. That's nuts, and so either he is holding out for more money (which seems intensely greedy) or is just sick of the show, which is understandable but he needs to say that so that people like Jean and Brooks aren't being demonized for no reason by the fans on social media. Either way, this is unfortunate and could result in his costars and fellow voice actors getting the short shrift in future years if he is replaced and no one seems to care (cost-cutting and all that).
-Agnes Varda, the legendary French New Wave director, will receive the Honorary Palme d'Or, a rare honor given to a director who has made a significant impact on the world but has never won the Palme d'Or. Past recipients include Bernardo Bertolucci, Woody Allen, and Clint Eastwood. Varda, the director of classic films like Cleo from 5 to 7 and Vagabond (that click you should be hearing is you opening another link to Netflix to start adding titles) is the first woman to win the honor.
On Politics...
Rep. Loretta Sanchez (D-CA)
-The Democrats continued to rack up more candidates, though I do feel like we're still shopping in the return bin a bit too much in 2016. Both former Senator Russ Feingold (WI) and former Rep. Baron Hill (IN) are running for their states' respective Senate seats, and while neither is a bad candidate, both of them come with serious "loss" baggage, as they both were defeated in 2010. They join former Gov. Ted Strickland (OH) and former Rep. Joe Sestak (PA) (also both losers in 2010) on the DSCC's roster, in addition to potentially former Sen. Kay Hagan (NC) and former Sen. Mark Begich (AK) (both losers in 2014) as theoretical candidates for the Senate next year. We'll investigate this a bit further in the week, but I am a little concerned about the Republicans have a red carpet ready message about running former losers, particularly with Hillary Clinton at the top of the ticket.
-In other news, potentially good for the Democrats, Rep. Loretta Sanchez (CA) is making a run for the Senate seat currently held by retiring incumbent Barbara Boxer. While this initially seems like bad news for Democrats who will have to endure a rough primary, it could set up a win-win for Democrats in the Golden State. The primary is structured so that the top two candidates advance regardless of party. Provided that Sanchez and Attorney General Kamala Harris remain the only big name Democrats in the race (a big if, particularly considering Sanchez's colleague Xavier Becerra may also jump into the race) and that Republicans don't coalesce around a strong candidate (a slightly smaller if, though several members of the state legislature are still making waves about the race), it could be Harris vs. Sanchez in the general. With Hillary Clinton certain to win the state's electoral votes and with two Democrats battling it out for the Senate, you might be in a situation where Democrats are compelled to get to the polls to weigh in on Sanchez v. Harris but Republicans are not, theoretically costing Republicans in critical down-ballot House seats like CA-10, 21, and 24).
-I know I am a teensy bit late on this front, but Carly Fiorina's playing the sexism card on Katie Couric has been sitting with me in the wrong way and that seems to be a theme this week. I am positive that in order to be a CEO Fiorina has had to put up with sexism-I'm not naive here-but the question of whether you're just running for Vice President has been posed countless times to male candidates ranging from John Edwards to Bill Richardson to even Martin O'Malley this year-it's not something that she's getting asked because she's a woman. It's something she's being asked because she's grossly under-qualified to be the president and that's one of the only explanations for her running.
-YouTube Video of the Week...
-The YouTube Holy Trinity reunited to promote Mamrie's first book, so that's basically magic. You learn in it which one of the Trinity cannot do impressions to save her life.
-Just One More...
-Yesterday was Endangered Species Day, which means that it's time to find some way to help save your favorite animal. You'll be in good company, as Oscar-nominated actress Glenn Close is leading a crusade to fight the endangerment of elephants through supporting President Obama's ivory ban. She joins the conversation that has gotten more press since the release of Kristin Davis's The Gardeners of Edenlast month. For questions about the ivory ban, click here.
Film: Winter Sleep (2014) Stars: Haluk Bilginer, Demet Akbag, Melisa Sozen, Ayberk Pekcan, Serhat Kilic Director: Nuri Bilge Ceylan Oscar History: The film didn't score any Oscars, but you shouldn't feel too bad for it, as it was honored with the Palme d'Or at Cannes (essentially the Nobel Prize of Film). Snap Judgment Ranking: 4/5 stars
On occasion, you just need a break. You need to watch something completely mindless that doesn't make you think and is like a mental Hot Pocket-delicious, bad-for-you, and available in two minutes (depending on the wattage of your microwave/Netflix streaming service). Winter Sleep, a three-hour Turkish film about the complexities of economics and relationships in a frozen country village, is not one of those movies. This is a movie that tries your patience, is subtle to the point of boredom, and yet pays off in unexpected ways the further that you get from it. It's a testament to the Cannes Jury that they were able to find a movie awash with ideas amidst an extremely strong lineup this past year, and while occasionally it made me check my cell phone for the time, I'm not going to say it wasn't worth enduring.
(Spoilers Ahead) Trying to explain Winter Sleep is not an easy task. This is a movie that in many ways functions almost like a play, where characters rarely interact with each other in more than one scene, and yet the story is always moving forward. Our central protagonist is Aydin (Bilginer), a former actor who is now a hotel owner and landlord, and is extremely wealthy. He lives in an eery, Bronte-like home on a hillside with his young wife Nihal (Sozen) and his newly-divorced sister Necla (Akbag). The film starts with Aydin having an interaction with one of his tenants, a man who is behind on his rent and is being sued to be removed from his home, and whose son has thrown a rock through Aydin's window. The film progresses as we learn about the life of Aydin and that despite not being an obvious ogre at first, we learn that everyone around him hates him for a variety of reasons. Whether it's his sister who constantly casts aspersions on his career or his wife, who blames him for the suffocation that she feels in her life or the townspeople who look upon him as a version of Mr. Potter from It's a Wonderful Life, the people hate Aydin and he is largely ambivalent toward it all-he has success, a career that he finds happiness with, and an insane amount of comfort.
That level of comfort has to be the most effective aspect of the entire film. So many films in recent years have been made discussing the economics of the movies (just look at films like Foxcatcher and Two Days, One Night from this past year, for example), but few have done it with such obvious ease as Winter Sleep. The movie frequently shows the leisure of the lives of Aydin, Nihal, and Necla. All of them are constantly surrounded by lovely decor, books, and access to fine food. Their house doesn't seem palatial (until later in the movie when you see a wide shot of the estate), but there's never any doubt that these people are of great means. With that, though, you see something that is almost never done well in the movies: atrophy. While Aydin is kept busy with his newspaper column, book research, and managing his businesses, the two women in his life have become incredibly bored with their lives and are tortured by the thought that they aren't doing enough with their time. It's a weird contrast to earlier in the film when we meet a family that can barely keep their home in order, and at first you sort of hate both women because they live in a world where they can have anything, but the film smartly moves from vantage point to vantage point, and we soon see the suffocation of their lives, how when we don't have to worry about money our hearts long for something else. Satisfaction becomes a bit of a mirage in Winter Sleep and even the happy moments in their lives soon evaporate.
Aydin, as we continue on through the film, becomes more and more complicated, which is odd because his personality never shifts-this is a great trick since we learn more about what his effect on his wife and sister have done to them rather than more about our chief protagonist. He's not an obvious tyrant, but his points about their lives, the subtle emotional abuse that his wife in particular has to endure, makes you feel sympathy for both women, even if they aggravate you. That's one of the least American aspects of Winter Sleep-you'll probably leave this film disliking every single character. Principally this is because there's some truth to Aydin's attacks on both his wife and his sister; his wife is far too impetuous and reliant on the shelter that money provides, while his sister casts aspersions on others while never taking any of the blame for her own life. We learn as the film goes on a little bit why this is (that Nihal has never had Aydin's support and that Necra's husband had been abusive), but that doesn't mean that you don't become extraordinarily upset with the women for their ignorance about their situations and their advantages.
The film stretches an arduous pace, and while I get the point, there are scenes that are near constant dialogue that even I had my limits stretched upon. We're so used to quick editing of conversations on screen that when we see entire conversations, unabridged, it's jarring-scenes take twenty minutes at a stretch to finish, which is exhausting and particularly with Nihal (who is so unlikable it's difficult to see whether it was she or her husband who first started the emotional abuse in their relationship) it's incredibly vexing. I definitely got the point of the scenes, as we learn more from awkward silences and repetition than we would from crisper cuts, but damn if that wasn't hard to get through at times.
The film was a major player at Cannes, of course, winning the top prize over the likes of Two Days, One Night, Mommy, Foxcatcher, Leviathan, and Mr. Turner, and since a number of these made waves throughout the year, it's worth asking-was Winter Sleep the right choice? Share your thoughts in the comments!
Film: Blue is the Warmest Color (2013) Stars: Adele Exarchopoulos, Lea Seydoux, Salim Kechiouche, Aurelien Recoing, Catherine Salee Director: Abdellatif Kechiche Oscar History: It scored a Golden Globe nomination for Best Foreign Film, but couldn't translate over to Oscar. It did, however, win the Palme d'Or, so there's no tears to be spilled over this film. Snap Judgment Ranking: 5/5 stars
I frequently get asked what type of movies that I enjoy, and like a four-year-old answering that question, I respond with a smug "I like good movies." And while this is a little bit jerk-like, I do believe it. Movies can be great regardless of genre, regardless of the subject matter. The other dirty secret is that they can also be truly great regardless of how complicated the plot of the film is. And that's at the heart of what makes Blue is the Warmest Color so special.
(Spoilers Ahead) This is because Blue is the Warmest Color, despite all the press you heard, is not that untraditional of a movie. The film-large and looming at 180 minutes-rarely feels it length, and you may be (understandably) distracted by the long, sexually-explicit sex scene that runs toward the middle of the movie. Indeed, that is where all of the press for the film seemed to gravitate. The film's gay center, and the sexual attractiveness of the two leads (coupled with the controversy's surrounding Abdellatif Kechiche's behavior on the set) have deeply overshadowed what is at the center of the film, a love story. And that's what's so great about Blue is the Warmest Color. It takes perhaps the oldest plot in cinema (a love story) and lays it out, bare, complete, simple.
In this way it's very similar to another masterpiece (yep, the movie deserves that term): Brokeback Mountain. Perhaps it's because both films have a gay element that I start with that comparison, but really, it's more because both films are elegantly simple. You'd be hard-pressed in recent years to find a straight romance that both is brilliant and is confident enough not to have a gimmick. Her is a spectacular movie, but you can hardly call it traditional boy-meets-girl. Blue Valentine is probably the closest, but that has to rely on juxtaposing the past with the present. No, it's films like Brokeback, Weekend, and Blue is the Warmest Color in recent years that have been simple, classic stories of romance.
The film tells the story of Adele (Exarchopoulos), a young woman who is on the verge of discovering her sexuality, slowly realizing that she is in fact a lesbian. While she clumsily tries dating a guy (trick of the trade: if Jeremie Laheurte doesn't do it for you, guys may not be a solid option), but continually finds herself drawn into the gay world around her, and after a brief kiss with a classmate (where Adele wants the contact more), she finds herself with Emma (Seydoux), an older, more experienced mentor who becomes her girlfriend.
The film continues on at a fairly traditional rate, with the two becoming immersed into each other's worlds. There's an oddly small amount of traditional gay tropes in the remainder of the film-only on sparing occasions do we see the characters focus on the perceptions of the heterosexuals in their lives (the parents, the friends, the coworkers, etc), but instead it becomes more about framing their relationship against each other. This is the first true love of Adele's life, and a significant one in Emma's. They laugh and share themselves, both physically and spiritually, and we see the two of them fall in love.
Of course, being a three-hour French drama, conflict eventually permeates this den, and Adele cheats (though as the rest of the film unfolds, we learn that this was merely a means to an end, and that their relationship was bound to end). The final few scenes of the movie, with Adele's hunger for trying to return to some semblance of normal (that scene in the cafe is ROUGH) and then the party where Adele realizes that she has to close this chapter of her life (in a purple dress, no less, in one of the few scenes where the color blue doesn't pop into her eyes), are some of the best scenes I saw in 2013. Real, honest, emotional, a large payoff from a very well-timed cinematic investment.
I should state that while the direction, writing, and pacing of the film are all superb, this film would fall apart if it weren't for two brilliant leads, and thankfully we get them. Lea Seydoux understands the complexity of Emma-the way that she's more experienced, but also keenly aware of what inexperience she carries. There's also a coldness to her, an eagerness to please-she knows that she's in the peak of her beauty and allure, and maximizes it for all to see. Adele Exarchopolous, a newcomer to cinema, is even better as Adele. Much has been made about the way she consumes food and how it mirrors the way she devours life in the film, but it is wildly effective. Even better is the way that she so wonderfully inverses Emma-she's warm and open to everyone, and not yet aware of the journey she's about to walk through. A mesmerizing pair of leads in a terrific film.
I know this is a movie that some ran hot-and-cold for (me being hot for the coldness, I guess)-what were your thoughts? Did you love or hate this film? Where do you think that Adele and Lea go next with their newfound fame? And how much do you think France wishes they could have submitted this film for eligibility at the Oscars? Share in the comments!
I'm guessing that most of you are out enjoying your Memorial Day festivities, but for those who are stuck in cars, scanning through their cellphones trying not to make small talk with your crazy uncle who keeps talking about Obamacare, you could probably use a link.
In Entertainment...
J.K. Rowling
Hitfix: We'll know in a few hours if they're right, but Hitfix gives a rundown of the wills and shoulds of the Cannes Film Festival awards. I think they're right on the Palme: Leviathan has all of the advance buzz, and no other choice seems to be "quite right" (Foxcatcher is too mainstream, Mommy too early in Dolan's career, and do the Dardennes really need a third trophy?).
Indiewire: Since we're already in Cannes, Quentin Tarantino is mad about the use of digital projection at the festival. I get it, but this seems to be an unfortunately losing battle for all involved-digital is the wave of the future, like it or not, and the use of 35 mm is, at its most optimistic, going to be what black-and-white is in modern cinema. Film Experience: Tim Brayton does an hilarious takedown over all of the weird controversy surrounding Dorothy's Return: Legend of Oz. Honestly, who actually thought this would be a good idea? This film looks and acts and talks like a direct-to-video movie you find in a Wal-Mart bin. How could it possibly have cost $70 million?!?
IBN Live: Alfonso Cuaron is reportedly in talks to take over Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. I've heard some complain about how this is disappointing, with Cuaron being such a visionary and all and not needing to hop onto a franchise, but it's just one movie in the franchise people, and Prisoner of Azkaban remains the absolute best of the Harry Potter films (and was directed by Cuaron), so I'm all for it. Plus, Cuaron only makes films at a snail's pace-something this big will probably mean he'll be working sooner rather than later. In Politics...
Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes with former President
Bill Clinton
Washington Post: I am running so hot-and-cold on the Alison Lundergan Grimes campaign right now. I mean, I want her to win (obviously), but I am impartial enough to be able to acknowledge when one of my candidates is running a poor campaign, and she's made some serious missteps. Forget the initial rollout issues (no one remembers those anymore), but her fumbling of the questions regarding the ACA (just say that you would have voted for it in a print interview-McConnell is going to say you would anyway) has made me question some of her skills. That said, this "empty dress" trumpeting is a solid way to drum up support on the trail, and honestly is showing that she's ballsy enough to take on McConnell in a way that some past candidates weren't (she clearly really wants this win). Considering the amount of female candidates out on the campaign trail for the Democrats right now, speaking toward gender may not be the worst campaign tool.
Also from the Post: Like most Democrats, I had a queasy feeling looking at the Tom Steyer spending announcements, thinking that the Citizens United decision has opened up money on both sides of the aisle that we really shouldn't be condoning, but am also thankful that until the law is overturned, we have someone who has the resources to combat the Koch Brothers. However, I also was a bit puzzled and worried that Steyer is spending money on races the Democrats are likely to win. The Post article points out that Steyer is trying to simulate a bit of what the Tea Party did in 2010, which is both good (climate legislation is vitally important to our planet) and terrifying (the Tea Party is in the process of destroying parts of the Republican Party, particularly in blue states). That said, the worst part about Steyer's money is that it isn't going to Senate races to help the likes of Kay Hagan, Mark Pryor, Mary Landrieu, and Mark Begich. Admittedly, these are four senators that don't share Steyer's views on the environment, but he must see their importance? At this point, the Corbett race doesn't really need any help-why spend money there to elect someone who is going to win without you? Even if he's not going to go to the "Wall Democrats" (the Koch Brothers wouldn't be so discerning, which is likely why they are so feared), couldn't you go with someone like Mary Burke, Ed FitzGerald, or Mark Schauer? Races where we're slight underdogs right now, and with candidates that have a more palatable view on the environment? Tom Wolf doesn't need any help becoming governor, but they do.
ABC News: A lot has been written about the wiseness of Julian Castro moving from San Antonio Mayor to HUD Secretary, and I feel like this is one of those decisions we will either hail as genius or stupidity (nowhere in-between) in a few years, but it's too soon to tell. There are two real questions here. One is how much press he gets in his Senate confirmation hearings. Sylvia Matthews Burwell got through confirmation hearings with little more than a peep, and the Republican Party may not want to give Hispanic voters a reason to get out in November, which holding up Castro (potentially the first Hispanic president-he has that aura) could do. The second is where does he go from here. Castro is of course studying the Wendy Davis election closely to see what can be learned, but he got into politics a tad bit early if he wants to be governor of Texas (a Democrat probably won't have a shot at a governor's or Senate seat until 2022 in the Lone Star State). His star is at its brightest now, and while HUD Secretary isn't a strong launching pad to be President, it's better than mayor. The question will be how President Obama's approval ratings go in the next two years, as Hillary Clinton will not want to have two cabinet secretaries from his administration on the ballot if she needs to draw a solid amount of distance between the two. He's definitely worth having on the VP list now, though.
Just One More...
People: I don't really know why I am sharing this, but I am a little obsessed with the Chmerkovskiy brothers, and thought this video was cute. For those who don't know, the Chmerkovskiy brothers are two of the professionals on Dancing with the Stars, and no, I don't watch it either, but they're gorgeous and I just love Maks' facial expressions throughout this video, particularly when they ask who wears the biggest...hat. Silliness, for sure, but I just discussed Cannes and HUD Secretaries-forgive me my shirtless Ukrainians.
